Post for April 27, 2010

Last week we talked about whether we still wanted to be law librarians and it made me consider how my perception of law librarians had change through the semester. Before this class I based my idea of a law librarian on the ones that I had met. These included only the librarians I knew from law school and the law librarian at the DuPage County Courthouse. So my idea of who they were and what they did was extremely limited. This class has expanded all that and allowed me to make a truly educated decision on whether I still wished to become a law librarian and what type I want to be.

Post for April 20, 2010

Outsourcing legal work is becoming more and more prevalent in large law firms. This is being justified as a cost cutting measure, but is it really ethical? When a client hires a law firm, they trust that their legal matters will either be handled personally or supervised by attorneys authorized to practice law in that particular jurisdiction. Therefore, outsourcing work (whether it can or cannot be classified as practicing law) to individuals from a different country is a violation of that trust. Sending work out into the great unknown and expecting it to be done properly is by no means adequately protecting a client’s interest. I am not saying that all the work done on a file has to be done by an attorney. Law librarians without JDs can often perform legal research more effectively then attorneys. However if they are in-house, the attorneys know their capabilities and can supervise their work. Outsourcing legal work needs to stop before it becomes the norm.

Post for April 13, 2010

Well I always knew that I needed to speak English in order to be a law librarian in this country. But, I never gave it a second thought, because I always thought I spoke English rather well. However, with technology changing so rapidly, it is not only creating an entirely new vocabulary, but a whole new way of communicating. Less than 15 years ago Google did not even exist, now googling is actual word in the dictionary. Only a few years ago the words tweeting, texting and WiFi did not exist as we know them today. But it does not end there, not only is there a whole new vocabulary, there is a whole new way of communicating. Twenty years ago people talked in person, by phone, postal mail and maybe by fax. Now there is e mail, instant messaging, face book, tweeting, blogging, texting and I am sure I missed a few. Now if this isn’t enough, when communicating using IMs, texting and what have you, you have to know what lol, brb, omg and countless other abbreviations stand for. This all makes me wonder if I will be asked if I speak Cybernese in my next interview.

Post for April 6, 2010

In last week’s class we discussed teaching legal research and whether librarians should start by teaching print or electronic resources. When I started law school ten years ago we learned print first and I believe that for us it was the best way to start. However, does this hold true for today’s new students who grew up on computers?
There is logic to starting with print, because it allows the student to actually see the rationale behind how the information is organized. As an example, if someone was looking for a case with the following citation: 123 N.E.2d 456, they would walk to the Northeast Reporters, find volume 123 and turn to page 456. By learning print the students learn the logic behind the organization of legal materials and understanding how information is organized is extremely important when looking for that information.
On the other hand, students who grew up with computers are more comfortable with them and learn to use them with relative easy. So if they understand electronic resources better, then why not capitalize on that? In my opinion, teaching print first makes more sense, but I can understand the logic of starting with electronic materials.

Post for March 30, 2010

The article by Lori Tarpinian, Let Them Know What You Do, addresses the importance of marketing the law library. The author described how by conducting a presentation she was able to clear up misconceptions of what the law librarians actually do. In today’s economy where budget cuts and layoffs are an everyday occurrence, marketing the library’s value is more important than ever. If the users do not know the extent of the services provided, then they will not understand why the librarians are needed.

Post for March 23, 2010

In Mary Whisner’s article, Update to Choosing Law Librarianship: Thoughts for People Contemplating a Career Move, she discusses choosing to be a law librarian. One of the issues discussed was how much law librarians get paid and how it would be less then what others in the organization would be paid. She basically said if you have salary envy you need to find a different line of work and I agree. Now don’t get me wrong, I love money just as much as the next guy but I love freedom even more. I love the freedom of not having to work 50 to 70 hours a week and the freedom of not having to work at a job I hate.

Post for March 16, 2010

Politics! It is not what you know, it is who you know! This is the world we live in and if you want to find a job you better start networking. I knew this was the case in a lot of professions and last week’s class taught me that being a law librarian is no different. In last week’s class we discussed the importance of joining organizations and meeting people and I am so glad we did. So let me take a moment to thank our wonderful teacher (I am not above brownnosing) and guest speakers, because last week’s class convinced me that I need to start getting involved. I don’t have any library experience, so for me joining AALL and CALL are extremely important and I plan on joining right away.

Post for March 2, 2010

After discussing Web 2.0 in the last class, I started thinking about how behind I am with modern technical trends. Ten years ago I considered myself to be technically savvy, but today I have a bit of an “I hate technology” mindset. So I started thinking about why this was and I came up with the conclusion that economics of practicing law forces attorneys to lose their interest in technology. If I had a computer issue when I first started practicing law I tried to fix it myself, but learned quickly that trying to fix a computer problem or installing a new program was not how they wanted me to spend my time. After all, every hour I spent messing around with the computer was one less billable hour for the firm. I don’t know if all attorneys are discouraged from handling their own computer issues, but I suspect they are. So the question is, does being discouraged from handling your own computer issues result in attorneys losing interest in technology in general. With me it did and I will have to change that if I wish to be successful as a law librarian. Now flipping to the other side of the coin, if the economics of practicing law discourages attorneys from being technically savvy then law librarians will be more important than ever.

Post for February 23, 2010

Do they really believe what they are saying? Well Westlaw and Lexis reps are always talking about ways of making people better searchers in order to save money. There is always this feature or that feature that can make the search more fruitful and thus lower the cost. But if they really wanted to save people money they could just charge less. It is a simple enough concept the less you charge the more people save. We now have WestlawNext, which is going to probably make bad researchers into even worse researchers. Now don’t get me wrong I believe in capitalism and think that companies should do what they can to make their shareholders money, so I in no way have a problem with either Westlaw and Lexis. So I just wonder, do they really believe what they are saying is true or do they know it’s just a bunch of malarkey.

Post for February 16, 2010

After hearing that legal research for a single matter can reach $75,000.00, if the researcher uses Westlaw with no regard to cost; I was astonished and had to ask in class why not just get an unlimited plan. I understand that $75,000.00 is the exception, not the rule. However, spending more on researching a single matter then the average family of 4 spends in a year is beyond belief. However, after thinking about it I realized that it would not benefit one of the larger law firms to get an unlimited plan. If we assume that a four attorney law firm can have access to Westlaw’s Illinois databases for $160.00 per month, the per attorney cost is $40.00 per month. However, a large law firm of 3,000 attorneys will most likely need access to all 50 states. Therefore, (using only a guesstimate)the cost of having access to all 50 states would be at the absolute minimum 10 times as much or $400.00 per attorney. So at $400.00 per month, for 3,000 attorneys, the annual Westlaw costs would come out to over $14,000,000. Now I am not sure if a law firm with 3,000 attorneys spends $14,000.00 a year on Westlaw, on a per transaction billing plan. However, I do know that if they are billed per transaction, they can easily pass the cost to the clients; but if they have an unlimited plan, it could not so easily be justified. Therefore, the law firm would have to pay the Westlaw bill out of their own funds rather then pass it on the clients.

Post for February 9, 2010

With most legal resources being digitized and the legal profession’s increasing dependency on electronic research, it is no wonder many libraries have started disposing of their physical copies in order to save space. As discussed in class this poses a few problems, namely the disappearance of previous versions of items and not having the original resource to cite in court. The disappearance of the previous versions of resources is a serious problem that needs to be addressed quickly, because the more we wait the more that will have lost. In regards to the citing from an original source, most courts accept unofficial copies and the remaining courts will inevitably have to accept them also. There is no denying that in doing so we need to put an unbelievable amount of trust in Westlaw, Lexus, Fastcase and the other services. However, with print versions being increasingly difficult to find, it would be unreasonable for courts to do otherwise.

Post for February 2, 2010

What I found to be the most interesting topic addressed in last week’s class is the law librarian’s duty to provide patrons with assistance in finding the law, while at the same time avoiding giving legal advice. No one can argue that it is a fine line between assisting patrons and giving legal advice. What I find more intriguing though isn’t how thin the line is, but where the line is. Everyone can agree that interpreting case law or telling a patron which statute applies is practicing law, but telling a person the location of a courthouse is not. However, everything in the middle appears to be a different shade of gray. Can a librarian tell a patron that he has 30 days to file an answer, if all she is doing is reading the summons word for word? There are countless scenarios where reasonable people can disagree as to whether an act is practicing law. There is no doubt that most librarians will err on the side of caution, but will that have a detrimental effect on service and the layperson’s right to access the law?