Digitalization of Thomas Philip Communal Library

Digitalisation of the legal profession has been a topic that sparks passion, conversations and debates alike among stakeholders of the legal industry internationally for the past decade at least. Digital transformation in the legal industry intensified tremendously when the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) trampled world economies. The legal profession, conventionally paper heavy and culturally conservative, battled to ride on and adapt to the wave of digitalisation sweeping the globe at a shocking pace.

Making Changes

When the legal profession was just beginning to find an equilibrium with remote working and virtual hearings, the necessity to the three C’s of changes within a law firm became more apparent.

1. Cultural Change

Digital transformation is not a sweeping change that can be executed in silo. Every law firm has its own culture, even if it is not defined or codified in the employment handbook. A firm’s culture is the culmination of goals, attitudes, behaviours, values and practices that define its members and management. Changes wrought by any digital transformation exercise inevitably interacts with these cultural factors. Hence, the pertinence to shift organisational cultures in order to accommodate impending change, or the digital transformation effort will be met with futility.

2. Collaboration and Communication

Restriction of movements have taught the legal profession means to collaborate and communicate digitally. Within a short 2-year period, the cloud is no longer just a visible mass of condensed watery vapour floating in the atmosphere to even the most tech-challenged lawyer there is. Law firms are expected to increase the availability of remote-working options while rethinking their real estate investments. Legal operations that allow for efficacious, personalised, and digitally proficient communication with clients and collaboration with team members or counterparts require strategic digitalisation.

3. Consolidated Workflow

As the judiciary and government offices ramp up digitalisation processes, law firms are required to adapt to an invigorated legal landscape where digital signatures, video conferencing, webinars, and electronically stored information (ESI) are the norm in today’s workflow. Law firms need technology solutions to consolidate legal workflows, making the search for information more seamless and the access to information more effective.

Communal Knowledge

The Thomas Philip Communal Library was established as both an altruistic project, and a testament that the sharing of legal knowledge does not chip away at the noble profession. When the Covid-19 pandemic hits and the Firm ramp up its digital transformation efforts, the physical Communal Library that the Firm’s members also rely upon for legal research and reference became a challenge to arrive at. Ideas for a digital communal library started brewing…

The foundation to any digital library is the digitisation of library contents and materials. A team of dedicated personnel was engaged to digitise existing library contents and materials including journals and textbooks across various practice areas onto a private data room as an addition to the Firm’s internal knowledge base. The journey was arduous but rewarding. Yet, the knowledge contained within the physical Communal Library has now been confined to the four walls of its locality, and the firewalls of the private data room. Industry peers and stakeholders who have benefited from the establishment of this communal law library stood to lose out.

Fast forward to August 2021, a brand new digital Thomas Philip Communal Library is slated to be launched!

The digital library aims to mirror the contents of the physical Communal Library, providing library users unlimited reads to all the Firm’s library materials, without any form of republication and reproduction. The Firm will also be launching the mobile app for this digital Communal Library, available in both Android and iOS by the time the nation celebrates our National Day, 2021.

Conclusion

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” Liberation starts from the awakening from a current state. The ability to adopt law firm digitalisation comes from a deep-seeded want for change, and the persistence to see it through. In this month of Merdeka, we hope that the launch of this digital Communal Library can help serve the legal community that we work closely with, and inspire peers from the legal fraternity to achieve greater heights in the global movement towards digitilisation.