With law librarians taking responsibility for their firms’ vital knowledge management systems, Lucy Trevelyan talks to them about their roles – and the rewards they can expect


A resounding 90% of legal librarians have seen their responsibilities increase in the past five years, according to a survey. With more responsibility has come more staff, bigger budgetary spend and higher salaries.



The survey of 32 top 100 law firms by publisher Sweet & Maxwell reveals that 64% of librarians feel that their status has risen in their firm of late as new technology becomes more important to the long-term strategy and competitiveness of law firms (see [2004] Gazette, 19 August, 4).


Susan Doe, chairwoman of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians and information and research manager in the London office of US firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, says the interest in knowledge management has played a large part in developing the librarian’s role.


‘Our experience in dealing with external information translates well into managing the internal knowledge created by the firm, and suddenly classification and cataloguing skills are in demand again as firms try to develop taxonomies to index their documents.’


She says IT gives librarians a greater armoury with which to more effectively provide information – but also increases demand, handing her department a constant battle to keep up.


The big read: the Law Society library has come a long way since 1904. Earlier this year, it launched an on-line catalogue


‘We are expected to provide information much more quickly and in a wider variety of formats than before. There are also a wider variety of products to assess and we have to make the judgement call on what is best for what the lawyer is asking.

‘Tighter budgets – not necessarily less in real terms, just that on-line material and accompanying licences are more expensive – and a growing monopoly/duopoly among providers makes it more difficult to be flexible.’


Susanne Homer, head librarian at Birmingham-based Wragge & Co, says more information is now available on-line, meaning librarians need to rely on collections held in external libraries less than in the past. But with new technology comes new problems.


She explains: ‘Changes in copyright and contract terms have made it more difficult to maximise the use of in-house resources. Some resources have increased in cost to the extent that they are no longer economically justifiable options.


‘Publishers are now more willing to look at comprehensive annual deals with better terms but monitoring of materials promised and paid for in advance is an ongoing role for the team.’


Kate Stanfield, head of knowledge management at City firm CMS Cameron McKenna, has 11 people reporting to her, and also works closely with 13 professional support lawyers.


She says that in recent years, ‘a more holistic view of knowledge’ has developed. She explains: ‘We work closely with all support functions – IT, marketing, HR – but more importantly, the fee-earners.

‘For example, I have just completed the implementation and roll out of the firm’s new portal. This integrates information as required for the working practices of each area of the firm. It links into HR data, finance data, marketing data, transactional data, e-mail, document management, databases, Web sites and more, to provide an integrated system, providing information in the context required.’


Ms Stanfield argues that information is not a separate ‘support’ function, but a valuable part of any transaction, and the department is not just a collection of books.


One of the cornerstones for integrating the knowledge of the firm was ‘a global taxonomy’.


She says: ‘Developing this clearly demonstrated that the classification elementary to librarians is not always obvious to others. Rather than a taxonomy which made information more available, the instinct of the average lawyer was to shroud concepts in practice structure. One of our aims is to enable silos of information to be broken down and integrated – the categorisation which every librarian brings to any role was key to the success of this aim.’


Chris Holland, the Law Society’s head of library services and formerly head librarian at City law firm Herbert Smith, says that because most of the Society’s members do not want to dispense with printed material in favour of electronic resources, the library must provide a mixture of both – bringing with it a storage problem.

‘I have one manager whose job it is to juggle storage space. It is a problem. There’s a lot of moving things around and you have to consider environmental conditions too. The thing is, part of our role is to keep more historical material too because lawyers often need to know how the law stood i

Homer: copyright and contract issues n the past.’


Birmingham Law Society solved its storage problem – and improved its electronic services in the bargain – when it raised £615,000 by auctioning 1,100 antiquarian law books in 2001. The oldest book in the sale, a first edition of Nicholas Statham’s Abridgement of laws in Norman-French published in 1488-90, fetched £29,900 after frenzied bidding.



Mr Holland says: ‘The Law Society has sold off material not considered totally relevant in the past. But the amount we can get rid of is limited by the expectation that we’re going to have a comprehensive collection. One has to at times weigh up the financial needs of the library as against how relevant different parts of a collection are.’


Ms Homer says that, historically, the library was a support function in which she had responsibility for planning, and providing service and resource delivery.


She adds: ‘In recent years, with the rise of the professional support lawyer role, I have worked closely with professional support lawyers to ensure the provision and delivery of the most appropriate services to fee-earners. This has been of major benefit to the firm.


‘The balance between finding materials for fee-earners and showing fee-earners how to find things for themselves has changed to some extent as more desktop research tools have become available. My team is actively involved in both areas.’


With their changing roles, the average salary for a head librarian has risen to £45,000 – up from £35,000 in 2000 – while those in the biggest firms can earn more than £100,000, according to the survey. However, Ms Doe says salaries still do not match the level of extra responsibility now weighing on most librarians.


‘Law is better paid than most areas of librarianship – but considering the responsibility and the level of work we carry out, I still think we are underpaid. My salary has nearly doubled in five years, but I have taken on extra roles during that time, which is reflected in what I earn now.’


New responsibilities have increasingly led to new job titles for librarians. Ms Doe says: ‘It is easy to be seen just as the person who looks after the books and nothing more. To match law firm expectations and demands, you need to be seen as not being stuck in a limited box. Most of the time, the job involves more than the traditional library roles – such as book purchase, journal circulation, cataloguing, etcetera – and extends into other areas. Therefore the job title should reflect what we are actually doing.’


Law firms are certainly investing more in their law libraries, according to the survey, with 88% of legal librarians seeing an increase in their share of the internal budget.


Ms Doe says: ‘My budget is comfortable. I am not allowed to give figures, but it is enough, and I can ask for more if I can provide the reasoning behind what I want.’


The Law Society’s library resources and services features a £3 million collection of books, including items such as the original plans of the Society’s Chancery Lane building dating back to 1828, ancient manuscripts and Royal Charters – and other electronic and print materials, mostly contained in Chancery Lane’s reference library.



Earlier this year, says Mr Holland, the library launched an on-line catalogue (www.catalyst.lawsociety.org.uk) where members can check for the availability of materials. His department also offers a range of print and electronic legal tools and materials, and a document delivery service (standard and premium for urgent requests). He also oversees a practice advice service.



‘There’s been a constant change recently with legal practice – such as with funding legal actions – and the changes in basic practice, and procedures can be confusing. Our team of qualified solicitors doesn’t provide legal advice, but we can assist practitioners with problems.’


He says his library deals with around 50,000 enquiries – including document delivery requests – a year, while the practice advice team deals with a further 30,000 enquiries, from practices of all types and sizes.


‘We tend to supplement information that lawyers already have available within their own environment. We deal with the whole gamut.


‘Large and medium-sized firms tend to have quite impressive information resources of their own but we often get approached by library professionals from larger firms, usually wanting to know about something a bit unusual which they don’t have in-house. With smaller firms, it tends to be solicitors who come to us if they’re working on something in slightly unfamiliar territory or looking for an unusual precedent.’


Ms Homer – whose department on average receives around 500 enquiries per month, about one per practitioner – says she has received some strange requests for information in the past.


She says: ‘I think that my favourite from a few years ago was “Where can I buy a full-size Uzbekistani flag this morning?”’


Mr Holland also reports some odd requests for information, notably one asking for specifications for various types of Russian vodka. ‘I had to use some lateral thinking – as one so often does as a law librarian – and I rang up a Russian news agency and got the information from a journalist there. I think the lawyers were rather hoping I was going to send them actual bottles to sample.’


Lucy Trevelyan is a freelance journalist