While it's mainly an American based survey there's much of interest in the latest ILTA Survey of Corporate Law Departments.
I was surprised that
Word 2003 still dominates word processing
Sharepoint hasn't been widely deployed
Most corporate law departments have had experience coping with electronic discovery
Knowledge management doesn't seem to be of interest to most corporate law departments
There appears to be ample opportunity for creative technological exchange between law firms and their clients
Interesting but not surprising… These stats are similar to what we see in law firms, except for some of the larger players.
If I were an IT manager, I would stick to Office 2003 and let the employees get used to 2007 (and waist time…) at home.
With respect to Sharepoint, my experience is that, even in places where it has been implemented, it is poorly integrated and therefore, just create a new repository to duplicate more material, defeating the purpose…
Corporations do not brag about e-discovery but the reality is that most of them have had experiences and are getting ready. Those who don't will shortly… after getting sued and spending $$$!
With respect to KM, this is normal. Knowledge being the third level of information, how can you manage it when you have no control over the information itself. This is one of the reasons I've only seen of few successes in legal departments and law firms. I feel it is of the utmost importance to properly manage information before trying collaboration and KM.
Any any Legal Departments using wiki like tools for information management?