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Wikis for Lawyers

As we posted here previously, many judges are using the mother of all wikis, Wikipedia, to provide background explanations on facts relevant to their opinions. And now it seems as if wikis are also poised to take off within the ranks of the legal profession, at least according to tech guru Dennis Kennedy, who posts here at Between Lawyers about an article that he and Tom Mighell just published on wikis. The article, Wikis for the Legal Profession, published in the ABA's Law Practice Management magazine (February 2007), provides an expansive overview that describes what wikis are and how lawyers can use them to benefit their practices. From the article:

Why should lawyers use wikis? They may help lawyers both as consumers and as producers. Most lawyers will get the most value from using wikis created by others. The classic example is the Wikipedia. Wikis can be seen as constantly updated collections of useful information arranged in an encyclopedic or similarly organized way, with hyperlinks to related internal and external information.

On the producer side, perhaps the greatest potential of the wiki tool for lawyers is its use as a collaborative tool or even an information or knowledge platform, especially as a way to gather and manage "unstructured" information easily and quickly. The key feature of wikis in this regard is that multiple authors and editors are able to work together to create a collection of information or even collaborative documents.

Is your firm using wikis, and if so, how? Post a comment and let us know.

Posted by Carolyn Elefant on February 21, 2007 at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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