Feature: A changing information environment

Paul Byfield explores the constantly evolving roles of the law firm library and information professional.

Law firms are working in increasingly competitive markets. The current financial turmoil makes it imperative that they undergo cost-cutting exercises in order to maintain their presence and remain competitive. The support units within law firms (business development, IT, human resources and library/information service) are often seen as overheads. They are, however, key players in a law firm’s primary role – the drive to maximise the delivery of quality advice to their clients.
The role of the library within a law firm is to enhance access to information that is generated internally and acquired externally. As the culture and focus of law firms change over time (whether as a result of changes in the marketplace, mergers/takeovers or developments in IT), the library has to change with it in order to survive as a credible support function. The main question here is: what does the law firm library have to do in order to keep aligned with the objectives of the firm?
In this article I will, for ease of reference, use the generic titles ‘information professional’ and ‘libraries’, as opposed to one of the many more descriptive titles currently in use.

Where is the library placed within the business?
It is perhaps too ambitious to discuss the myriad of organisational structures that exist within a law firm and where the library is placed within them (see Table 1 for some examples). However, a very important point to consider is that in order for the library to succeed it must be well supported and recognised by the law-firm partnership as adding to the success of the firm.
In model one (the traditional law-firm library model), there is a direct line to the partnership. This model can be very effective if the partner is a champion of the work of the library. It can be a disaster if the partner sees this management responsibility as additional administrative work. Models four and five appear to be prevalent in the majority of medium and large law firms. It is vital, however, that the head or director of the department has an authoritative voice within the firm and the confidence of the partnership.

‘Push technology’
As law firms and law firm libraries got to grips with the development of technology, it made it easier for librarians to focus on the provision of tailored information services to specific departments and business groups. The development of ‘push technology’ current-awareness services was a period of major change for information professionals – we were transforming from a reactive to a proactive provider of information. Those lawyers whose only previous experience of visiting the library was once a year to look at a loose-leaf, suddenly became very aware of the information professionals ability to provide up-to-date and time-critical information. This is one of the key factors that changed the perception of the library: it was transformed into an ‘information service’. This practice has been established for some time now in law firms and it has almost been accepted as a minimum level of service.

‘The trainer’
Moving on from this, and analysing the apparent necessity for libraries to reinvent themselves to remain credible, we can see that the proliferation of online databases being used by law firms has resulted in information professionals taking on the role of ‘information trainers’. Information professionals have ‘hands on’ knowledge of these services and are therefore ideally placed to provide instructions on how to use them. Combine this with the information professional’s knowledge of the information needs of their organisation, and you have the ideal trainer. This is contrasted with the trainer from the provider company: certainly they know the product very well, but have very little knowledge of the needs of the organisation.

‘The researcher’
Lawyers as we know are driven by the need to charge by the hour for their expertise. This ‘billable time’ is the basis of the lawyers’ accounting system and explains why they are, therefore, always looking for ways to cut down on ‘peripheral’ activities. Most lawyers do not have time to construct sophisticated searches; these take time, and that is where the information professional comes in.
Our knowledge of what sources to use reduces the amount of time it will take us to process a search – this expertise makes us valuable. When you combine this with our knowledge of what our organisation needs, you can make a strong case for the retention of the service. If law firms outsource library services (as many have done in the past), they soon realise that, by treating the library service as a commodity, they lose the value-added benefits of having their own dedicated team. The information professionals who work for you know the business of the law firm and therefore know the lawyers’ needs, both individually and collectively. They are, therefore, able to personalise and package that service for you. It is not just about harnessing technology – it is having the capacity to understand the organisation’s information needs.

Knowledge sharing across jurisdictions: what is knowledge management?
A significant factor in some of the changes that happened within law firms in the 1990s (and onwards) was the demand for firms to set up offices overseas. This expansion resulted in increasing pressure on libraries to set up multi-jurisdictional services and meant that librarians at headquarters were answering queries from lawyers practising in other jurisdictions.
These difficulties were overcome by the libraries being able to expand with the business (the process of alignment happened not only within the UK but extended overseas). These ‘satellite’ libraries would often exist with only one information professional, but they were vital to the exchange of information that occurs within a law firm.
Law firms realised that the lawyers across several jurisdictions needed to be able to answer the same questions to solve similar problems. The lawyers, therefore, needed to be able to access the same precedents and collective ‘know-how’. This requirement to not ‘reinvent the wheel’ is a time-saving exercise to ensure productivity.
This drive towards collecting know-how or knowledge management (KM) occurred at a time when technology was often seen as the answer to all problems. Law firms (and other professional-service firms) invested significant time and even more money in implementing KM systems and hiring heads of KM to run the projects. These were often run as document management or IT projects and did not address the cultural issues of the organisation. The KM systems were imposed on lawyers who did not really understand what their role should be in the whole process.
The KM systems became very expensive information repositories that were initially feted but did not solve the information-sharing problems that many law firms are still faced with today. To a large extent, law librarians were often ignored during the advent of KM systems.
As some firms reappraised their approach to this apparent phenomena, they slowly realised that they had within their midst a small group of people who were ideally placed to play a central role in the implementation of knowledge-sharing activities – the information professionals. We had, after all, been involved in this type of activity for some time: we just had not called it by this seemingly ‘sexy’ name.
At some point, the image of the information professional within a law firm has been at the heart of the problem. However, once information professionals took a lead role in this type of project, the image of the library and its staff underwent an almost immediate change. The expertise of the information professional (retrieval, organisation and dissemination of information), therefore, became paramount to the success of the KM project.
As legal information specialist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a major element of my role is to conduct annual interviews with a significant proportion of the lawyers in the Office of the General Counsel (one of the largest in-house departments in the City).
These interviews are vital for me to maintain an understanding of the changing priorities of my clients and to ensure that I understand the difficulties that they face. From these interviews, I have devised a KM strategy to organise my tasks and implement the suggestions that have been put forward. These 30-minute interviews are very straightforward in their format, but extremely vital to the ongoing success of the provision of information to the lawyers.
The lawyers involved in banking operations also have a responsibility to monitor legal developments in the countries in which the Bank conducts its operations: 30 jurisdictions in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. In order to successfully manage this process, the lawyers need access to a vast array of primary and secondary legal sources, a significant proportion of which are only published in the local language. I have developed a database to manage this information and provide regular updates on new resources. The lawyers are fully engaged in this process and it only works due to the high level of collaboration.

The rise of Google
In some circles, it is still perceived that the rise of Google has enabled everyone to become a researcher. After all, information has become freely available to all – so why do we need information professionals? Luckily, not everyone is misguided.
The advent of Google has probably made the information environment more complex and thus the role of the information professional is probably more vital now than ever. Most lawyers suffer from information overload – they are constantly bombarded with information that they do not know what to do with, or do not need at that time. The information professional is ideally placed to be a facilitator and/or interrogator of all this information. We analyse it, filter it and disseminate what is necessary – this role is vital.
The role of the information professional needs to constantly change to recognise the diversity of roles that we undertake (a review of job adverts in the Library & Information Gazette will make you aware that there are almost as many different job titles as there are actual jobs).
The major challenges faced by law-firm information professionals are how to react to an ever-changing legal market and the constant development of new technologies. The development of Web 2.0 technology has begun to have a fledgling impact on the legal profession; but it is at such an early stage that it would be foolhardy to make any absolute predictions. However, as with most developments, it would appear that information professionals are at the forefront of harnessing this technology and applying it to produce some advantage for their clients. This is ultimately what is expected of our profession, and this is something we need to continue to deliver.

Paul Byfield is a legal information specialist with the European bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). He can be contacted at byfieldp@ebrd.com