Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Key definition

Knowledge definition

What does Knowledge mean? In legal practice, knowledge describes a person’s actual awareness that a fact or circumstance exists, going beyond mere suspicion. It is addressed in both legislation and case law and its use is broadly consistent across England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. In criminal law, knowledge forms part of the mens rea for offences requiring that the defendant knows a relevant fact (for example, that property is stolen), and can include wilful blindness (deliberately avoiding confirming what is obvious). In civil law, knowledge allocates risk and affects time limits: limitation rules refer to the date of knowledge (actual or constructive)...

Adding value through in-house legal knowledge: identifying, curating, communicating and governing know-how, precedents and data, with practical solutions for silos, retention, taxonomy, automation and culture change

Published by a LexisNexis In-house Advisor expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note focuses on how to identify, store and Share the Knowledge held by in-house legal teams, and how that insight, once surfaced, can be harnessed to create value. Key topics include:

the importance of consolidating legal knowledge
defining the in-house legal team’s value
delivering benefit to the wider organisation
spotting and disseminating knowledge
challenges and practical solutions
ways to communicate the information
methods for Recording and managing information

The importance of consolidating legal knowledge

Ambition often collides with reality when considering a business’s accessible knowledge. People want swift access to a compact, clear source, yet they face a sprawling, leaky sea of material that fails them. Too often, the team’s collective know-how sits in sprawling, unruly boxes, with little structure or logic. So what is the remedy? It is time to bring record management up from the basement. Paper should no longer be the dominant medium for storing information; this is the moment to innovate and evolve...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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