I was recently asked, by Deborah S. Panella, to recommend reading for keeping up with KM (knowledge management), AI (artificial intelligence), and legal tech. She curated an ILTA KM blog post, What Are You Ingesting and Will You Digest It For Me?, published on 22 May 2018. The audience for this post is primarily knowledge management professionals.

Here is my list of sources that I find relevant to keep up with KM, AI, and legal tech. I separate these into blogs, daily email newsletters, and one book on KM.

 

Blogs

I read the sources below via my feed (RSS) reade, Feedly. If you want to follow more than a couple of regularly published sources, I strongly recommend using a feed reader.

Legal AI + Innovation:  Published daily, Artificial Lawyer Blog by Richard Tromans, cover legal AI, both news and commentary. This is more about AI and innovation than KM – but can we even draw the line anymore? Another good daily update source, broader than just legal, is Mark T. Greene’s Today in Legal Artificial Intelligence. Mark really knows how to scour the web to bring a range of sources and provides short intros, commentary, or context.

Legal Tech: KM includes far more than technology of course. But KM professionals should stay current on legal tech given the vibrant start-up scene and that established providers are rolling out major upgrades. I find three sources useful for regular updates: LegalTech News (ALM), Legal IT Insider (aka The Orange Rag), and Legal IT Professionals.

KM professionals might also consider two other sources. First, Above the Law has noticeably increased its tech and start-up coverage, and also covers the business of law, so if you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get a lot of other content too (associate comp or lateral recruiting wars, anyone?). And second, I find it useful to read general mainstream media to keep up with tech trends write large. I find good tech articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week. Of course, there are many others from which to choose.

Legal Research and Legal Start-Ups: KM can overlap with legal research, especially with AI-enabled research tools. To stay current here, I read Lawsites (Bob Ambrogi) and Dewey B Strategic (Jean O’Grady). Both offer reviews and opinions, so you get more than just the news. Bob also provides excellent coverage of legal tech start-ups and other topics. Both are award-winning bloggers.

Legal Business: KM professionals should stay current on developments in law practice management, legal operations, and firm management. For the big picture and strategy, I read Adam Smith, Esq. (Bruce McEwen), Law21 (Jordan Furlong), Legal Mosaic (Mark Cohen), and Legal Evolution (Prof. Bill Henderson). Newer to the scene and bringing deep analytics is Jae S Um of Six Parsecs (@jaesunum); for the moment, you can find her articles at her LinkedIn page.

Daily Email Alerts

I subscribe to three weekday email updates published by PinHawk (sign up here: click on the title of interest to see a sample and for a button to subscribe). The author of each topic identifies interesting articles / posts from multiple sources, legal and beyond, and adds insightful commentary.

KM Book

For an excellent deep dive on legal KM, I highly recommend the 2015 book, Knowledge Management for Lawyers by Patrick DiDomenico, published by the ABA.

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[I have made a few edits to my content above since ILTA published its post. That post also includes  recommendations come from Stephanie Abbott, Marlene Gebauer, Mara Nickerson, Mary Abraham, Chris Boyd, and Deb.]