Often, useful insights and work product have been previously produced by the firm's fee earners. The problem for many service firms is that the fee earners do not know this nor do they have a resource to access this work product. Service firms that develop a means for fee earners to access work product prior to beginning new work will have, at their disposal, a significant value for their clients and a strong competitive advantage. The following outlines a systematic method for implementing a resource bank of previous work.

A resource bank is a depository of standardized forms, documents, research, insights, and related work product generated by the service firms professionals that is readily accessible by fee earners. Problems that service firms originally experienced when attempting to establish such a depository have been eliminated through the use of Windows based networking. Today, accessing previous work product can be as simple as clicking on an icon.

While firms of a few fee earners should find it easy to identify the individual to implement a depository of previous work, for larger service firms the primary responsibility for creating and maintaining the firm's resource bank should be placed on individual practice groups. Each practice group should appoint a technology coordinator responsible for ensuring that the practice group completes the various tasks that successful implementation of a resource bank entails. Under the guidance of the coordinator, the practice group would identify the types of forms and standardized documents that the practice group's fee earners should have available, prepare an approved set of them, and arrange for them to be deposited into the resource bank.

Each practice group should be responsible for quality control of materials it places in the depository. Each practice group is to be responsible for identifying, developing, approving, and depositing into the depository those forms and other types of standardized written materials fee earners are to be responsible for producing with some frequency as part of their practices. The practice group will also have responsibility of periodically reviewing the forms placed in the resource bank to ensure their continued quality, accuracy and reliability. Outmoded forms should be corrected or removed and modifications to or improvements upon existing forms made promptly. Forms and standardized documents should not be deposited into the resource bank until they have been approved by the practice group.

Fee earner participation in this resource will, in all likelyhood, be voluntary. The firm's policy of encouraging the deposit into the resource bank of fee earner work product, whether previously or contemporaneously generated, should be explained to prospective lateral hires. For some firms, the individual's reaction to that policy affects any offer of employment. The challenge for firm management is to stimulate fee earner awareness of this resource and its value to existing and to prospective clients.

The firm should identify an individual or a group to function as a "review board" for the Information Technology Department on practice issues that arise from technological advances. Membership in this "board" should include fee earners, document clerks, support staff, and administrative staff.

A resource bank is not a technological fad available because technology permits it. A work depository is both a professional and a competitive resource for progressive thinking service firms. As service firms look for marketing messages they can deliver that will separate them from the competition, a well stocked and an effectively managed resource bank can be a major distinguishing marketing factor.