Law Firm Library Research Articles

Increasing Your Visibility and Going Beyond Your Job Title: the Pros and Cons of Saying Yes to Everything

AbstractThis article by Ian Hunter, which has been adapted from his BIALL Conference presentation at the Belfast Europa Hotel, examines increasing the visibility of law firm library and information services in terms of what should be done and what should not be done. Or, as Ian puts it: “Is saying yes to everything really the right thing to do?”

Accessing Legal Information in Malaysian Law Firm Libraries

AbstractThe advancement of technology has drastically changed the way information is being stored in the law library. With current technology, many have found that legal information is easy to retrieve from federal or state government websites in Malaysia. But while federal legislation can be accessed via the internet, some of the law cannot be accessed for the public to review or download. Also, older law is unavailable from the federal gazette website, and it is crucial for the lawyer or law librarian to publicly access it. This paper, by Qudri Ali Abu Bakar, discusses the restriction of access to legal information and looks at some alternative ways of gaining full access to federal and state law in Malaysia.

Library profile: The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors

AbstractFiona Fogden has spent much of her career in law firm libraries, but she has recently taken on the role of Knowledge & Information Service Manager at RICS – the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. So, who better to give LIM an overview of the RICS Knowledge & Information service, describe what the collections contain, and also tell us how the service would be of interest to legal information professionals.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Legal Information Profession within Law Firms

AbstractThe purpose of this research is to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the legal information profession within law firm libraries in Britain and Ireland. As the pandemic only began the year before commencing this research, few studies had been conducted on the topic, thereby a clear opening for this study emerged. This study uses a survey research strategy comprised of a mixed methods research approach. Desk research in the form of a literature review opens the study. A questionnaire and 5 semi-structured interviews were subsequently conducted. To understand the impact of the pandemic on the legal information profession within law firm libraries, the research objectives break the topic down into 4 areas that give insight into the consequences of the pandemic. The research found that A) working from home was the major impact faced due to the lockdown in spring 2020; B) use and spending on print resources declined; C) the role of legal information professionals has not significantly changed; and D) future legal information professionals will need to upskill due to technological developments and improve the image of the profession. Owing to the recent outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to compare the findings of this research to similar future studies to determine the validity of the results.

The BIALL Law Firm Library Survey 2019/2020

AbstractThe second BIALL Law Firm Library Survey was launched in December 2019. The aim of the survey is to understand standard practice across the law firm library sector and to allow firms to benchmark certain aspects of the library's service against industry averages. This article contains a summary of the results with comparisons, where possible, to results from the previous survey (2015/16). The full survey results can be found on the BIALL website.

Reflections on Current Trends and Predictions for Commercial Law Libraries

AbstractThis article, written by Samuel Wiggins, examines current trends within commercial law firm libraries, and considers how those trends might continue over the next five to ten years. Areas considered include legal technology, the future of the library space, the role of the professional body, training, and the relationship between traditional librarianship and knowledge management.

Moys @ McCanns: Reclassifying a Law Firm Library

AbstractThe McCann FitzGerald library provides a library and information service to one of Ireland's premier law firms. As Megan Guthrie explains, it was decided to reclassify the library collection using the Moys Classification Scheme for Legal Materials1 to enhance and improve the flow of the collection. It also provided an opportunity to conduct a stocktake of library material. The project was broken down into three main steps: assigning a Moys number, relabelling the physical material and updating the library management system. There were a number of challenges including the need to modify or add to the Moys numbers and finding the optimal process for relabelling and accounting for the material. It was necessary to adapt the initial plan throughout the project to account for any obstacles or restrictions that were encountered.

The BIALL Annual Law Firm Library Survey 2015/2016

AbstractThe BIALL annual law firm survey was launched in October 2016. The aim was to understand standard practice across the law firm library sector and to benchmark certain aspects of a library's service against other firms, providing a year-on-year comparison of how the profession is changing. This is an overview of how the survey came about and a summary of the key findings from the first year's results. It was written by the Working Group members. The full survey results can be found on the BIALL website1.

Moving or Relocating a Library

AbstractIn this article Ruth Bird examines the issues around moving, or relocating, a library. Drawing on her experiences of moving, relocating and renovating, and in the context of current work that is happening at the Bodleian Law Library (BLL), she compares the issues in relation to both law firm libraries and academic libraries. The article examines space management and collection management issues, planning, allocating roles and how the burden of moves can be shared in a collaborative way. Ruth also looks at the ‘people’ issues and the implications for collections.

Current Trends in the Use of Collection Development Policies in Law Firm Libraries

AbstractMark Pexton, of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, provides a report on the findings of a survey into the use of Collection Development Policies (CDPs) and related collection development issues in law firm libraries. The survey was conducted during September 2014 and during the course of this article he provides an analysis of the benefits and difficulties of creating and implementing a CDP.

Branding and Promoting Law Firm Libraries

AbstractLoyita Worley discusses the need for librarians to promote library services more avidly within their organisations. She argues that providing a high quality information service to clients is not necessarily sufficient and that librarians need to give considerably more effort to promoting and branding their services, in the way that other teams in law firms already do. She looks at why librarians should brand, how they should do this and what they should brand. The perspective of the user is also taken into account and the importance of building trust and confidence with clients is identified as a key feature in the approach to branding and promotion.

Space: the Final Frontier for Law Firm Libraries

AbstractThe amount of physical space available is a vital issue for virtually all law libraries. In this article, Dunstan Speight, Library Manager at City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP, presents the issues involved in reducing and retaining library materials, to help library managers present a sound business case for maintaining the collection they need. Dunstan's experience is that of a law firm librarian, but it is hoped that much of what follows will also be relevant to librarians in other sectors.

Outsourcing Law Firm Libraries to Commercial Law Library and Legal Research Services. The UK Experience

The recent global and Euro zone financial crises and the emergence of competition from alternative providers of legal services have provided impetus to law firms globally to adopt new low cost models of legal service delivery in order to compete for commercial legal work. Outsourcing has played an important part in these new lower-cost models of service delivery. Since 2009, ten large and leading UK law firms have completely outsourced their law libraries to one of two commercial providers of law library and legal research services.Little is known about the providers and users of these services or how the services work in practice because of concerns of commercial confidentiality. Opinion is divided on whether library outsourcing is a temporary response to the need to reduce costs in a financial downturn or an inevitable, irreversible consequence of the changing information needs of lawyers. Opinion is also passionately divided between outsourcers and law librarians in the UK on the quality and benefits o...

Between Book and Database: Meeting Information Needs in a Law Firm's Library

AbstractFaced with a fragmentation of publishers' portfolios in Germany, the librarian Martina Kuth was interviewed about the challenges to grant a user-oriented library collection in a large commercial law firm like CMS Hasche Sigle.

Do Library Schools Adequately Prepare Students for Cataloguing in Irish Law Libraries: an Investigation

AbstractIn 2008, BIALL held a pre-conference workshop in Dublin entitled “Back to Basics: Cataloguing and Classification”. The workshop raised some interesting questions about the quality of cataloguing training provided by library schools and law libraries. Although cataloguing in British law libraries has been the subject of research, no study has yet explored cataloguing in Irish law libraries. This study by Clare O'Dwyer redresses this lack of information by focusing exclusively on the Irish context. The perceptions and expectations of cataloguers are examined using a multiple case study design combining interviews and questionnaires. The libraries selected for case study are representative of the three main types of law libraries in Ireland: a professional society law library, a government law library and a law firm library. Following analysis and discussion of the research findings, the study concludes with a series of recommendations regarding the curriculum for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and further training of cataloguers in Irish law libraries.

Collection Development Policies in Law Firm Libraries: Do we Need Them?

AbstractThis article written by Jasmin Hollingum was adapted from her coursework that she submitted as part of an MSc in Library and Information Studies. It posits that whilst collection development policies (CDPs) are in widespread use in academic institutions, they are currently under-used in law firms. It considers what benefits a written CDP could deliver to a law firm library and identifies the problems that firm librarians face when developing such policies. Finally it seeks to establish ways in which they might be overcome.

Moys Classification and Norton Rose

AbstractCatherine O'Sullivan of Norton Rose outlines the benefits of using the Moys scheme in a large law firm library. She also briefly discusses how the firm has tailored it to their specific requirements and she finishes by pointing out the potential disadvantages of the scheme.

Checklist – a Library Move

AbstractIn this checklist, Margie Jones picks out some of the key issues she encountered when moving a regional law firm's library from the head office to new premises situated six miles from the town centre to a converted warehouse. These include the challenge of offering a distance service to the fee earners.

Bertha Wilson's Practice Years (1958-1975): Establishing a Research Practice and Founding a Research Department in Canada

This article is one of a collection of essays on Canadian judge Bertha Wilson, edited by Kim Brooks, to be submitted for publication with the University of British Columbia Press. It is an account of Wilson's practice years at the law firm Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt from 1958 to 1975, and her founding of the research department at that firm. Using interviews with former colleagues of Wilson's and reconstructed primary source materials, the piece provides a snapshot of the years before Wilson went to the bench, when she founded the research department and took an early interest in law firm computerization. It explores the gendered nature of the research-related initiatives she was involved with at Osler, focusing specifically on the system she established for the law firm library indexing and cross-referencing the firm's legal memoranda and opinion letters.Wilson's research practice is important to understanding Wilson qua Wilson, the first woman to sit on the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada. Given that the idea for a research department was copied by other large Canadian law firms, what she did at Osler is also important to understanding Canadian legal culture.Wilson leveraged her difference and natural strengths at a time that might be called the cusp of specialization, not yet here but on its way, a new world order characterized by departmentalization, increased meritocracy, more aggressive forms of client development, and new technology. As the first female lawyer - and female partner - at Osler, she symbolizes many of those changes in the profession, while at the same time participating in the process that would make those new elements a reality.This account will be of interest to Canadian lawyers who want to learn more about Wilson, law librarians who want to know about the history of law firm information storage and retrieval systems, those interested in women in the legal profession, and legal historians with an interest in changing modes of law firm organization and development in Canada and the United States in the Twentieth Century.

Reference Services in Law Firm Environments

SUMMARY Law firm libraries have undergone drastic changes in recent years. This chapter chronicles the evolution in the size of the law firm library and its collection, the changing expectations of law firm library users, and the inventive ways that law firm librarians are fulfilling the needs of the law firm library users with technology and other means. This chapter also explores how law firm libraries can improve service and overall efficiency through limited outsourcing of reference services.