The Knowledge Plan is the legal team’s strategic blueprint for how it will capture, curate, share, and apply knowledge to improve performance and deliver consistent value. It’s not just about storing documents - it’s about building a living system that turns experience into reusable assets, and ensures that what the team learns today improves what it delivers tomorrow.

Legal teams generate knowledge every day - through advice, negotiations, disputes, and decisions. But without a plan, that knowledge is fragmented, siloed, and often lost. A Knowledge Plan ensures that insights are captured systematically, shared effectively, and applied intelligently. It defines the processes, tools, roles, and behaviours needed to make knowledge work for the team.

Critically, the Knowledge Plan is also the enabler of the Group Legal Policy. You cannot operationalise the GLP without building the knowledge assets that support its positions. Whether it’s templates, guidance notes, or decision trees - the Knowledge Plan ensures that the legal team has the tools to deliver advice that is consistent, aligned, and fast.

In short, this station is about turning knowledge into infrastructure. It’s about making sure that what the legal team knows becomes what the legal team does - every time.

The scope of the Knowledge Plan includes:

◼️Knowledge Asset Mapping: Identifying the types of knowledge the legal team needs to capture (e.g. templates, advice, precedents, workflows).

◼️Knowledge Lifecycle Definition: Establishing how knowledge is created, reviewed, updated, and retired.

◼️Roles & Responsibilities: Defining who owns knowledge management, including contributors and curators.

◼️Integration with GLP: Aligning knowledge assets with the Group Legal Policy to ensure consistent advice.

◼️Knowledge Sharing Protocols: Creating channels and behaviours that support active knowledge exchange.

◼️Platform Selection: Choosing the right tools to store, search, and manage knowledge assets.

◼️Training & Enablement: Ensuring the team knows how to contribute to and use the knowledge system.

◼️Measurement & Improvement: Tracking usage, gaps, and impact to continuously improve the plan.

In GLS legal ops speak – the Knowledge Plan is considered a “Foundational” resource within the process ecosystem of an in-house legal team.

The Foundational Resource is a CRE that is responsible for determining the overall performance capabilities of a “critical” legal function. If it is not optimised, the function can never be optimised. 

The best practice features of the Knowledge Plan are as follows:

◼️Documented Strategy: A written plan that outlines the legal team’s approach to knowledge management.

◼️GLP Alignment: Knowledge assets are built to support the positions and standards set out in the Group Legal Policy.

◼️Knowledge Asset Catalogue: A structured inventory of templates, guidance, and precedents.

◼️Contributor Framework: Clear expectations for team members to contribute insights and updates.

◼️Knowledge Manager Role: A dedicated function responsible for curation, quality, and accessibility.

◼️Platform Integration: Use of a centralised digital hub for storing and accessing knowledge.

◼️Usage Analytics: Tracking which assets are used, by whom, and how often.

◼️Continuous Improvement Loop: Regular reviews to update assets and close knowledge gaps.

The Knowledge Plan delivers the following value to the Business:

◼️Faster Advice Delivery: Reusable assets reduce time spent reinventing the wheel.

◼️Improved Consistency: Advice is aligned with business standards and risk posture.

◼️Reduced External Spend: Internal knowledge reduces reliance on law firms for routine guidance.

◼️Better Risk Management: Lessons from past matters are captured and applied proactively.

◼️Scalable Legal Support: Knowledge enables the team to handle more work without increasing headcount.

◼️Enhanced Business Confidence: Stakeholders trust legal advice that is consistent and well-informed.

◼️Operational Efficiency: Less time spent searching for past work or duplicating effort.

◼️Team Enablement: Junior lawyers can deliver faster with access to curated knowledge.

◼️Improved Collaboration: Knowledge sharing strengthens team cohesion and capability.

◼️Reduced Burnout: Lawyers spend less time on repetitive tasks and more on strategic work.

◼️Stronger Onboarding: New team members ramp up faster with access to institutional knowledge.

◼️Professional Development: Exposure to best practices and precedents improves legal skills.

The Knowledge Plan is essential for:

◼️General Counsel

◼️Heads of Legal Operations

◼️Legal Team Leads

◼️Legal Knowledge Managers

◼️Legal Technology Leads

A legal team operating without a Knowledge Plan will face a wide range of inefficiencies including:

◼️Reinventing the Wheel: Time wasted recreating advice, templates, and decisions.

◼️Inconsistent Advice: Legal guidance varies across team members and business units.

◼️Lost Institutional Knowledge: Valuable insights disappear when lawyers leave or move roles.

◼️Slow Onboarding: New hires struggle to find relevant materials and context.

◼️Overreliance on External Counsel: Routine questions are outsourced due to lack of internal resources.

◼️Poor Risk Visibility: Lessons from past matters are not captured or applied.

The Knowledge Plan leverages technology. It requires:

◼️Knowledge Management Platforms: Centralised systems for storing and accessing assets.

◼️Collaboration Tools: Channels for sharing insights and updates across the team.

◼️Search & Tagging Functions: To make knowledge easily discoverable.

◼️Analytics Dashboards: To track usage, gaps, and impact.

◼️Integration with Legal Ops Tools: Linking knowledge assets to workflows, templates, and matter management.