Legalweek 2025 Session Recap

What it means to have your data ‘ready’ for AI and the path toward readiness is certainly different for every organisation. This was the topic of discussion at the Legalweek 2025 session recently in New York, “Putting your KM ‘House’ in Order to Leverage Your Data,” moderated by Eric Anderson, Practice Lead, Search, Data, AI of Epiq and featuring several Knowledge Management expert panelists, including:

• Tulsi Greenspan, Legal Analyst, Knowledge Management & Engagement, Chevron

• Sara Miro, Director of Knowledge and Innovation, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

• Jardanian Josephs, Director of Legal Operations, Reed Smith

• Jennifer Mapp, Senior Director, Data Management and Analytics, Morgan Lewis

Defining, Capturing, and Centralising Knowledge

One of the foundational steps in preparing data for AI is effective knowledge capture. Sara Miro reflected on earlier times when law firms struggled to maintain reliable knowledge repositories, which her firm called a ‘brief bank’ and was often underutilised. Their current approach combines automation with human oversight to capture information and determine the materiality of the data. Using trigger points, such as deal signings, to initiate data capture forms ensures critical information is systematically recorded and that you are not requesting data before it exists.

Tulsi Greenspan highlighted the challenge of finding common threads of knowledge within the vast amount of information lawyers receive daily. On any given day a lawyer might get 15 emails about 15 notices, violations, incidents, related questions, and so on. To address this, her team spent two years consulting various groups to define what 'knowledge' means to them and created a handbook outlining key knowledge for each group. Centralising this knowledge in a repository ensures it is accessible to everyone and can be curated effectively.

Jennifer Mapp emphasised the importance of curating metadata from a variety of internal and external sources to ensure consistency, structure, and common taxonomies. Her team has built integrations with external metadata sources to provide lawyers with a starting point and then expand with matter profiling exercises.

Jardanian Josephs and his team find success in process mapping capturing current knowledge practices for lawyers to show them what they’re trying to do and why it benefits the client. He commented that the process must be as simple as possible. Often, we want technology to fix a ‘people’ problem, which instead requires a dedicated change management initiative.

Starting Small and Showing Value

Eric Anderson recommended starting small and working with teams willing to work with you on new and innovative solutions. With each effort, you can accumulate the data you need in a central repository to serve the current project and be reused in future efforts. This helps to show continuous value while getting your data in order slice by slice.

Every project contributes to your overall data health and can be delivered faster. Each effort in the same way a house builder taps into a central water supply, instead of digging a well for each house, allows the core data sets for KM to be reused across various initiatives, making it crucial to establish a strong foundation.

AI Still Lacks Judgement

Miro highlighted that while AI can provide effective answers when fed curated repositories of high-quality material, it still lacks the judgement needed to curate the material itself. Therefore, human oversight remains critical in determining what is material and ensuring the quality and trustworthiness of the data. AI can augment the process, but it is not yet advanced enough to replace human judgement entirely.

Focus on the Solutions Users Need

The panel agreed that the most successful KM data initiatives start by identifying the strongest use cases and have significant stakeholder buy-in. Identifying real problems — the ones that concern clients the most — and methodically solving them sets the direction for successful AI integration.

Learn more about Fireman Knowledge Management advisory services, and how they help law firms develop KM strategies that leverage existing investments in people, process, and technology while preparing for next-generation technologies and workflows.