One of the most common barriers to getting fee earners involved in knowledge activities is the “chargeable hours problem”: that the payback for non-chargeable time spent on KM is simply not great enough compared to the payback for the same amount of chargeable time (payrises and promotion). KMers in the legal sector have grappled with this problem in numerous different ways.

One of my tactics is to make one piece of content work really hard. If a fee earner can see that an afternoon of non-chargeable time will actually get him/her significant amounts of visibility with clients and senior partners, they will be more keen to engage.

10 ways to work your knowledge:

1. An article for an in-house newsletter, e-zine and/or firm blog
2. An article for an external publisher
3. An article for an online publisher, such as Ezine Articles
4. A seminar for clients
5. An internal training event
6. Upload the presentation to SlideShare
7. Video the client seminar and/or in-house training event and put it on YouTube or turn it into a webinar
8. Prepare a summary for your internal KM database
9. Distil from it a workflow and/or checklist for similar work
10. Engage with followers about the whole process via Twitter

Each bit of work will require slight re-purposing for a different audience or a different focus, but this is minor compared to the initial investment of time in researching the key topic.

And lastly, after all this, your fee earner will have earned the right to call themselves an “expert” in this field in your internal White Pages/address book.

Do you have a favourite way to re-use knowledge?  I’d be interested to know what works in your firm.

For personal advice and help, visit TheKnowledgeBusiness, or if you prefer to DIY, get your own copy of “Knowledge Management Handbook” from Law Society Publishing here.

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