This blog post looks at the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) and elder law certification (CELA) from the perspective of knowledge management (KM) and web 2.0. S2KM's prior blog post (2008 NAELA Symposium-1) featured S2KM's "Web 2.0 for Lawyers" wiki plus a NAELA-specific podcast interview by Scott Drake for the Legal Broadcast Network (LBN) with Patrick Hindert, S2KM's Managing Director and blog author.
Knowledge Management (KM) means organizing knowledge to achieve productive work, competitive advantage and business value. KM provides a professional discipline to personalize advancing Internet technologies and to help knowledge workers understand and manage personal, organizational and industry knowledge.
Here are some recommended KM learning resources for NAELA members:
- Wikipedia definitions for
- Google searches for
- Denham Grey's
- Web 2.0 for Lawyers Concept Map - Dr. Barbara Bowen
- Selected blogs featuring KM and law
- Lessig 2.0 - Lawrence Lessig
- DennisKennedy.com - Dennis Kennedy
- Law X.0 - Ian Best
- S2KM blog posts
From a traditional (pre-web 2.0) KM perspective, NAELA represents an "advanced" and knowledge-intensive community of practice. NAELA's community knowledge is displayed on the NAELA website as well as the website of the National Elder Law Foundation (NELF) which sponsors and manages the Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA) program.
In addition to the CELA program and the several hardcopy elder law textbooks CELA recommends as learning resources, NAELA captures and distributes knowledge in many formats including:
- NAELA's website - an excellent example of a web 1.0 website;
- NAELA conferences - including hardcopy handouts, CD Roms, and audio tapes;
- NAELA Journal - an academic journal featuring articles by leading elder law attorneys and professors;
- NAELA News - a magazine featuring additional articles by leading elder law attorneys and professors;
- NAELA Listserv - an online tool for NAELA members to communicate about substantive legal issues.
Question: what is striking about NAELA's "advanced" knowledge-intensive community of practice?
Answer: NAELA currently does not offer its 4400 members any:
NAELA's web 2.0 shortcomings are shared by almost every other professional trade association S2KM follows. AAPD, featuring two association blogs, represents the singular exception that proves the rule. Because of NAELA's strong knowledge foundation and orientation, however, this author predicts NAELA and its professional members will become successful adapters of web 2.0 tools and technologies. It is time for NAELA to begin this transition.
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