Talking Data: Iron Carrot speaks with Katy Snell and Alice Laird, data specialists at Howard Kennedy on taxonomy process and its link to data governance
Season 4 Episode 5
Welcome to Season 4 of the Law Firm Data Governance podcast. I’m CJ Anderson, founder of Iron Carrot, the law firm data governance specialist. I’m thrilled to have a new season of insights about working with information and data in law firms.
Data governance is the key to unlocking your law firm’s potential. But it’s not the only area of data activity that is important for your firm’s success. That’s why, in this fourth season, I’m pleased to share some information, questions, and top tips about the other areas you might want to consider.
Episode Transcript
CJ Anderson
Welcome to Season 4 of the Law Firm Data Governance podcast. I’m CJ Anderson, Founder of Iron Carrot, the law firm data governance specialists. I’m thrilled to have a new season of insights about working with information and data in law firms. Data governance is the key to unlocking your firm’s potential. But it’s not the only area of data activity that is important for your firm’s success.
That’s why, in this fourth season, I’m delighted to share some of my recent data conversations. My guests this season are thought leaders in their own areas. Each has a unique perspective on the importance of data to law firms. Join us as we talk about capturing, finding, using and governing data in ways that can add meaningful value to the firm’s strategy, operational processes, and everything in between.
This week, I’d like to welcome to the episode Katy Snell and Alice Laird from Howard Kennedy to talk to us about taxonomy and data in law firms. So welcome Katy and Alice.
Katy Snell and Alice Laird
Thanks CJ!
CJ Anderson
So let’s start with you, Katy. What’s your current role and what can you tell me about your career journey working with data and law firms?
Katy Snell
So my current job title is Knowledge Systems and Information Manager, but that really evolved after first doing a firm as their research librarian. I was brought in to kind of help boost the enquiry service, which was kind of something that came out of the merger of the two smaller firms when Howard Kennedy came into existence. Most of my previous roles have had some touch point with systems, which therefore have also involved data in some way. I worked as e-services Librarian at the Ministry of Justice, which is also where I first had sort of legal research experience. I then moved to the institute of chartered accountants, which was more inquiry service led, but I did once again end up getting involved in library management systems and CRM and then after that I decided to join Howard Kennedy because I wanted to go back to legal research. That was my first commercial law firm, but obviously having got the legal research skills at OJ and then the Business Research at ICW it this current role kind of combined all of my previous roles.
CJ Anderson
Interesting journey in, in and out of law firms and with that research perspective and your experiences, how do you think data is viewed in law firms?
Katy Snell
It’s tricky because I’ve only been in the one law firm, so it’s hard me to talk generically. But having said that, I’m part of lots of networks, have been lots of parts of collaboration groups. I’ve met lots of people across different firms and had these kinds of conversations. I think the importance is definitely growing and there seems to be more articles and focus on being data-driven. But you know how successful they are and how much it’s just buzzwords I think it’s quite difficult. Law firms are traditionally quite secretive, so I’m not sure if you can always get the full story of what’s going on in the background. There are definitely people doing it well, I’ve seen there are many great examples of people using things like power AI to bring data together centrally so it can be analysed. But I don’t think just practice completely, otherwise we probably wouldn’t continue to have all these collaboration groups to try and figure out all of these problems. I think it’s always an issue of time and resource. Data projects sometimes get pushed aside because they seem too tricky or maybe not as exciting as other things. But you know, I think it’s the foundation of knowledge.
CJ Anderson
Really interesting answer and not to forget you, Alice. You’re also relatively new to law firm data. What’s your current role and how did you get there?
Alice Laird
I’ve been at Howard Kennedy for one year now and it’s the first law firm that I worked for. My job title is Information and Metadata Manager, and it’s within the Knowledge team. It’s actually a new Howard Kennedy role to build and implement taxonomy at Howard Kennedy, and it’s combined with information inquiries and information resources or traditional kind of library information role. I qualified as a librarian a long time ago, and my general career path has been in classification, cataloguing, inquiries, but then about eight years ago, I was seconded as project manager to ICAW that’s the Institute of Chartered Accountant in England and Wales where I used to work to a taxonomy project then which I’ll talk about in more detail later. Then last year, I moved to Howard Kennedy. I’ve actually known Katie and I’ve worked with her in the past at ICAW. The Howard Kennedy role sounded really appealing and interesting to me and combines my interests and previous experience. But it was also a great opportunity to start something new. And in a new type of working environment and I had the specific skills and experience required. So yes, a year ago I moved.
CJ Anderson
That’s brilliant, and taxonomies and an interesting one, can you just explain a little bit either of you about what is a taxonomy and why law firms need them?
Alice Laird
I’ll kick off on that and then perhaps Katie can continue with some points later. A taxonomy, it’s often really difficult to define taxonomy, so I’ll have a shot at it. It’s a categorisation system, using consistent labels and descriptions for use in labelling content, often used for tagging and it can often be a hierarchical labouring labelling system, which it doesn’t need to be. I thought it might be useful to just say a few potential advantages and versatility for using one in a law firm. So just to pick a couple of examples, one of the things it can do is if you have your content well organised and labelled consistently, it can really improve analysis and the understanding of the work a firm does so. For example, you can see where the law firms work is efficient and profitable. Another potential use is within a knowledge system. Again, if all the precedents, for example, are really well and accurately labelled, you can use search to locate all the precedents on a wide topic. But you can also home in and find something very specific. And finally, for example, when it’s time for directory submissions, if your cases are well labelled with taxonomy. So for example, maybe if you need to find some examples for your directory for a particular sector or particular types of work, you can find those quickly and accurately rather than having to track back through your memory and endless and place things in spreadsheets. Did you want to add anything, Katie?
Katy Snell
I think it’s more a general note. I think in law firms I get the impression that interest in taxonomy has went away for a while because there was a sense that maybe other technology was going to solve those issues without having to do the hard work of creating one. But I think you know, it’s becoming clearer that taxonomies and the wider issue of data governance and data control like absolutely foundational to making these things work at the end of the day, you can’t leverage data that you can’t make sense of.
Listen to the podcast in full here – https://ironcarrot.com/data-governance-podcast-season-4-episode-5/
