In-house resource guides prepared by law departments

If a law department compiles guidance for its clients, and perhaps for its own members, regarding recurrent legal questions, some people term it a “resource guide.” This was the idea expressed in the Corp. Compliance and Reg. Newsletter, March 24, 2006.

The benefits of a resource guide that people consult are multiple. Clients become more educated consumers, the law department handles fewer pedestrian requests for services, everyone becomes better trained, standards and procedures are made clearer, and legal costs drop.

A resource guide is one branch of the tree of knowledge management; its other branches include guidelines, intranet sites, client training, self-service models, post-mortems, and frequently-asked questions (See generally my post of Dec. 20, 2005 on these investments.).