What teams say after their repositories are in order
We have worked with legal practices across Hong Kong on diagnostic, taxonomy, and curation work. Below is an honest account of how those engagements landed.
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Legal teams served
8
Years in practice
4.8
Average satisfaction
95%
Taxonomy adoption rate
From practitioners who have been through the process
Rachel Hui
PSL, Corporate, Central HK
"We had four years of M&A precedents sitting in two different document management systems with no consistent naming convention. The diagnostic gave us a completely clear picture of what we had and where the overlaps were — which was more extensive than anyone had guessed. The taxonomy build that followed took about three months, and the curator playbook has been used by three new starters since then."
April 2025
Marcus Tang
Senior Associate, Finance & Capital Markets
"The curation cohort was more practical than I expected. The sessions worked through real questions about how to handle materials that sit across multiple categories, and the peer-review forum meant we kept discussing edge cases between sessions rather than forgetting them. The workbook is something I still refer to when I'm training new curators in our group."
March 2025
Anna Leung
Knowledge Manager, Dispute Resolution
"I came to Cogwood initially just for the diagnostic, because I wasn't sure the firm was ready to invest in a full taxonomy build. The memo was direct and specific — it named the actual repositories that were causing the most duplication and estimated how much redundant material we were maintaining. That gave me something concrete to take to the partnership, and we commissioned the full build three months later."
April 2025
Peter Wong
Partner, Employment Practice, Sheung Wan
"What I appreciated was that Cogwood worked within our existing iManage setup rather than suggesting we move to a different platform. The taxonomy they designed reflects how employment practitioners in Hong Kong actually categorise their work — not a generic HR taxonomy imported from a handbook. Six months on, the team files consistently and retrieval is straightforward."
March 2025
Christine Kwok
Director, Legal Operations, In-house Team
"We are an in-house team, not a firm, and Cogwood was willing to adapt the engagement to our structure — which includes materials from four jurisdictions and a team that works across both Hong Kong and PRC law. The taxonomy accounts for that cross-jurisdictional dimension in a way that an off-the-shelf approach would not have managed."
April 2025
James Ng
Associate, Regulatory Practice, Admiralty
"Regulatory materials date quickly, and one of our biggest problems was that retired circulars and superseded guidance were mixed in with current materials without any clear status markers. The taxonomy we built with Cogwood introduced a status layer that makes it much easier to see what is current. The 30-day review was useful — we caught a couple of filing habits that needed correcting before they became embedded."
April 2025
Three engagements in detail
Challenge
A corporate practice group had accumulated seven years of M&A and private equity precedents across two document management systems following a lateral hire programme. Roughly 40% of materials were estimated to be duplicated or superseded. No consistent naming convention existed, and different partners had their own personal filing logic that nobody else could replicate.
What We Did
We ran a diagnostic to map all repositories and produce a draft taxonomy. The taxonomy was then built through six working sessions with the group's three designated curators, configuring the final structure in iManage. We migrated the priority materials (approximately 1,200 documents) and ran three curator training sessions before launch.
Results
Duplicate materials reduced by approximately 55% following the migration and retirement of stale content. The group's three curators maintained consistent filing in the first 90 days post-launch. New associates reported finding relevant precedents significantly faster than before the build. The curator playbook has been used for two lateral hires since delivery.
"The working sessions were the part I had not anticipated — they were where we actually solved the hard categorisation questions that no template would have answered for us."
Challenge
A regulatory practice was migrating from an ageing document management platform to a new SharePoint-based system. Before migrating, they wanted to understand what they actually had — and avoid carrying forward years of disorganisation into the new system. The firm's IT team had estimated the volume at around 15,000 documents.
What We Did
We completed a full repository audit in three weeks, producing a written memo that categorised the existing materials, identified redundancies, and recommended which material types to migrate, which to retire, and which required review before a migration decision. The memo included a draft SharePoint taxonomy structure.
Results
The practice identified that approximately 30% of the document volume was either duplicate or superseded, reducing the migration scope significantly. The diagnostic memo became the brief for the IT migration project, and the taxonomy structure was configured into SharePoint before the migration began. The migration was completed on time with a structured repository from day one.
"We had budgeted weeks of IT time for the migration. The diagnostic cut the actual volume by almost a third, which saved considerably more than the diagnostic cost."
Challenge
A firm had implemented a taxonomy two years earlier but found that curation quality had degraded — different practice groups were using the taxonomy inconsistently, and the curators who had been involved in the original build had changed. The taxonomy structure itself was sound; the problem was the maintenance practices.
What We Did
We ran a curation coaching cohort with eight curators drawn from four practice groups. Sessions addressed tagging consistency, how to handle edge cases, retirement practices, and how to run a lightweight quarterly review. The cohort's cross-practice composition meant common vocabulary questions were resolved in sessions rather than separately by each group.
Results
Tagging consistency improved measurably in spot checks conducted two months after the cohort. Three of the four practice groups had introduced a formal quarterly review by the end of the cohort period. The peer-review forum established during the cohort continued to be used actively three months after the programme closed.
"The value of having curators from different practice groups in the same sessions was that we stopped treating our edge cases as unique — most of them turned out to be common problems with agreed solutions."
Get in touch with Cogwood
- +852 5821 6743
- [email protected]
- 9/F, 12 Stanley Street, Central, Hong Kong
- Mon–Fri 9:00–18:00 HKT · Sat 10:00–14:00 HKT
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