It can be a very tough proposition to sell: spending fewer billable hours. In many cases, a successful knowledge search will result in exactly that – with just the right prior work at hand, you can draft up the needed agreement in a much shorter time. So, how do you ensure that the client is still charged ‘the right amount’? How do you ensure that the valuable input is rewarded?
Because firm management tends to translate all fees into hourly rate equivalents, I believe they undervalue the high fixed cost of experience and work product. Consequently, firms likely “give away” prior work product and undervalue the one or two hours of rare expertise that ‘cracks the case’ (and that KM enables finding). If true, then doing so may, over time, undervalue the fruits of KM. Anything that is undervalued risks underinvestment. (via Strategic Legal Technology :: Legal KM and Law Firm Pricing.)