Law firm KM publicity

It is interesting to watch the recent surge in publicity on law firm KM. Over the last week there were some very interesting posts about Ark Group's KM for the legal profession conference: Ron Friedman blogs about the presentation by Jason Marty (Baker McKenzie) and Julia Randell-Khan (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer), while Joy London blogs about Browning Marean, partner with DLA Piper speaking out about KM at law firms.

Why the sudden move away from secrecy? Some of the reasons Browning Marean mentioned for pursuing a KM career also apply to this question (summed up by Joy London on excitedutterances):

• Client demands: He pointed out that more and more prospective clients are demanding law firm KM descriptions in RFPs.
• Recruiting: law school recruits are asking firms about their KM systems, mentoring and training programs.
• Capture institutional knowledge: lawyers who move to new firms as laterals are "roving Samurais". The brain drain of their intellectual capital can be enormous.

KM is becoming more than a back-office function. All of the points mentioned above are not only a reason why it is interesting to have a law firm KM career but also a reason to make KM efforts publicly known and I guess we will see a lot more of that soon.