A virtual law library that also generates knowledge more readily available to lawyers

Lucent Technologies’ law department came up with a clever idea: “The department allotted every attorney [I think there were at least 60 at the time] $200 to purchase a book relevant to his or her practice area. Each attorney generated a summary or digest of the book for the rest of the staff.”

Ingenious! From this small mention in InsideCounsel, Sept. 2006 at 66, flow several points. The summaries could be searchable on an intranet site, the lawyers generate the knowledge organically – in connection with something they care about, and it would be possible to track hits on summaries and establish a recognition system (See my post of March , 2007 about internal markets for ideas.). A similar idea should apply to attendance at CLE events – the department pays for the registration and costs in return for which the lawyer circulates a summary (See my post of May 1, 2005 for more on this technique.).