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Knowledge is power

01 August 2014 / Tim Heywood
Issue: 7617 / Categories: Features , Profession
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How well informed is your firm, asks Tim Heywood

The legal profession rightly prides itself on its deep technical expertise and the sound professional judgment it can bring to the variety of business challenges faced by clients.

It also applies tried and tested ways of handling information, be that sensitive commercial information supplied by a client (perhaps the details of a proposed merger or acquisition, or a new consumer product) or its own information (the information derived from that deep technical expertise) such as know-how; templates and other specialist materials.

Information (or rather the value that can be derived from the conscious process of managing, protecting and exploiting information) lies at the very heart of successful legal practice. That much is surely a “given”.

Information is a valuable asset to the firm and so, naturally, all firms manage and control their information effectively at all times and extract maximum commercial value from it.

Because lawyers are also bound by a professional duty of confidence, and that duty is inculcated into us during the training

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NEWS
Ceri Morgan, knowledge counsel at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP, analyses the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Johnson v FirstRand Bank Ltd, which reshapes the law of fiduciary relationships and common law bribery
The boundaries of media access in family law are scrutinised by Nicholas Dobson in NLJ this week
Reflecting on personal experience, Professor Graham Zellick KC, Senior Master of the Bench and former Reader of the Middle Temple, questions the unchecked power of parliamentary privilege
Geoff Dover, managing director at Heirloom Fair Legal, sets out a blueprint for ethical litigation funding in the wake of high-profile law firm collapses
James Grice, head of innovation and AI at Lawfront, explores how artificial intelligence is transforming the legal sector
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