Lawyer, Librarian and Knowledge Wizard: Kutak Rock’s Nola Vanhoy Does It All - By: June D. Bell

Nola M. Vanhoy is a legal administrator, all right, sort of the way a neurosurgeon is a doctor. In a field of specialists, Nola is a specialist’s specialist.

Kutak Rock’s director of knowledge services is something of a matchmaker, pairing lawyers and legal staffers with cutting-edge technology and training that help them do their jobs more efficiently.

“It is a unique job, but it touches on so many areas of law,” says Nola, who holds a master’s degree in library science as well as a law degree. Both are invaluable, whether she’s selling lawyers on a new document-management system or evaluating research software for the firm’s 16 offices.

“It’s a lot about people processes,” says Nola. “It’s less about technology and more about the people, helping to get them to a common goal.”

Her field of knowledge management may seem somewhat vague because it’s an evolving specialty. But it’s growing in prominence as law firms become increasingly reliant on technology to handle their voluminous documents, organize their massive files and handle their voracious research needs.

Members of the Atlanta chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators who are familiar with knowledge management and its significance can thank Nola. She launched the AALA’s knowledge management section in fall 2003. She’s hoping to hold a few meetings each year to expose administrators to the field.

A November panel discussion she organized on eLearning to help law librarians and training managers broaden their research capabilities is one way she’s helping to educate her colleagues.

Though she’s a specialist, Nola says she regularly turns to other Atlanta legal administrators for networking and advice about resources. And she’s glad to share her expertise. She’s helping Kutak Rock transition from a traditional database management system to one that hosts all its documents on line.

The shift will allow lawyers to more easily access files and active documents whether they’re in the office, at home or on the road. The new system will also allow full text searching, making it easier to find specific documents.

Nola maintains her law license but doesn’t practice law. But she says it’s come in handy when questions arise about licensing issues or copyright law, her areas of expertise.

She is a graduate of Virginia Tech and earned a master’s degree in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She worked as a corporate and technical librarian for a fiber-optic cable company and branched into business forecasting and analysis.

After earning her law degree at Chapel Hill, she moved to Atlanta and worked for AT&T. But Nola, who was at the time in her late 30s and had a small child, found she wasn’t cut out to be an associate.

A friend told her about a researcher opening at Kutak Rock. She joined the firm in 1999, eventually ran its law library and filled in for a few months as its legal administrator when Michael Stevens, the current ALA president, left. Nola became director of knowledge services in 2002. (Donna Jackson is the firm’s legal administrator.)

Nola oversees four staffed research libraries and two that are unstaffed, handles online research contracts and oversees the group that is responsible for the firm's Internet and intranet sites. The firm’s business development communications staff reports to her, as does the firm's training groups.

As the head of knowledge management for the Omaha, Neb.-based firm, Nola says her job is to help the staff in all of Kutak Rock’s 16 offices use technology comfortably and effectively. Kutak Rock’s Atlanta office has 60 employees, including 22 attorneys. It’s one of the smaller offices. The firm employs a total of about 325 lawyers.

Her job spans training, project planning, desktop learning and implementing a new portal for the firm’s Internet and Intranet sites. Though her responsibilities set her apart from other legal administrators, she says her challenges are quite similar: “The important part of the job is weaving people’s strengths together.”

Her biggest obstacles are acclimating lawyers to technology that will help them and trying to prioritize when so many tasks demand her attention.

“Lawyers struggle, struggle, struggle with it (technology),” she says, because they’re too busy to learn how to use new software or uncomfortable with change. “All are in this quasi place where they have things handed to them, but we’ve never defined how we get the training to them,” she says. She’s had to scale back Office 2003 training from two hours to quick-hit 30-minute lessons. “You really do have to think about how do you deliver it (information) in a way that they’ll come to a presentation," Nola says.

As for the competing demands on her time, “there’s so many things you can get yourself involved in,” she says. “I try not to step on other people’s toes.” Before tackling major projects, she consults with the firm’s chief information officer, Ken Kroeger, or obtains executive committee approval.

Kroeger says Nola was instrumental in helping the firm’s attorneys and librarians decide between Westlaw and LexisNexis. Paying for two services was costly, but different offices had different loyalties. She surveyed employees to determine their preferences, garnered consensus and then presented a business case about the recommendation. All Kutak Rock offices today use Westlaw.

“She’s been very helpful in moving initiatives forward on a national level,” Kroeger says.

The Omaha office’s law library has shrunk significantly thanks to Nola’s efforts to make library periodicals available on line. That change has boosted accessibility while saving money as library space was converted to office space.

Though Nola is the only staffer with national responsibilities who is not based in Omaha – the firm's principal office – she’s never out of touch thanks to videoconferencing, phone calls and travel, when necessary. “She’s really turned it into a plus,” her boss says, “because she can really bring the remote office point of view” to bear.

Nola notes that because her wireless Blackberry keeps her in touch with the office wherever she goes, her definition of a getaway has changed: “Now, going on vacation means finding a place where the Blackberry doesn’t work,” she says.

June D. Bell has profiled more than a dozen AALA members. Contact her at junebell@aol.com.

Editor: Debra F. Goldman (DGoldman@GMLJ.com) (This publication is the property of the Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators. Reproduction or reprint without prior permission is strictly prohibited. Click here to request reprint permission.)

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