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law libraries track the requests they receive
by practice group, office, assignee, time to
complete, whether billable, resources used,
etc. Some use tracking systems or homegrown
wiki pages to build knowledge bases with
this information, using prior work to guide
incoming work. As more and more firms seek
to consider their work product in terms of its
data, perhaps the library can be a starting
place for testing out processes or harvesting
data sets.
Have you asked your library team
if they employ resource usage tracking
software? Many library teams do. These tools
capture data used for retention/cancellation
decisions, mapping chargeable sessions
with billing data, measuring ROI, providing
password recovery services to end users, and
maintaining compliance with licensing terms,
which can be valuable to other departments.
As usage monitoring software becomes more
advanced (and more integrated with other
functions like billing), consider how your
team may work with the library to better
leverage existing tools.
3 . Legal library teams have existing
relationships with vendors who are taking
over the legal tech market.
A fundamental duty of the law library
is to maintain, or provide access to, the
resources that attorneys need to practice.
Depending on the size of your firm, the
number and variety of practice areas, and the
consolidation (or lack thereof) of purchasing
power, this may be a vast and expensive set
of materials. More and more legal research
materials are digital, with added functionality
like analytics, AI, automation, review and
comparison capabilities, and even direct lines
of access to other tools. Lines are blurring
between legal research resources and other
legal technologies, and librarians have taken
a proactive approach. One such example
is AALL's Committee on Relations with
Information Vendors (CRIV).
Prominent legal research vendors
offer a wide range of products, and law firm
professionals need to (if you'll allow me this
metaphor) know what they have in the pantry
before going to the grocery store. Some legal
research vendors sell research databases,
AI-enhanced technologies, document
generation and review tools, workflow and
matter management tools, practice-specific
tools, client intake and billing software,
and buy smaller companies that offer the
same. But when considered, purchased, and
implemented in isolation, these products
may be more expensive than necessary,
not compatible with other firm systems, or
completely redundant.
It may have once made sense for
Accounting, BD, CRM, KM, LPM, Research,
and others to handle their own software
needs separately, but it doesn't anymore.
Though implementations eventually converge
in IT, there is need for democratization before
decisions are made. Not all technolo stacks
are equally cohesive, and few individual
products are "givens," as revealed in results
of the 2018 ILTA Technology Survey and 2018
Law Firm Marketing Technology Survey. If
real-time discussions aren't feasible, why not
at least have a comprehensive repository of
what the firm's teams already license and who
can access each tool? (That is the bread and
butter of some modern law library technical
services roles.)
One of the most sensible things a firm
can do is establish a multi-departmental
procurement committee surrounding
legal technolo. It is no secret that the
rise of alternative legal service providers
has created a formidable opposing force,
changing everything from the way law firms
provide service, to the services they provide,
to the way those services are priced. More
than ever, law firms need to be lean, wise,
and collaborative. There's no reason to be
territorial when evaluating new solutions.
There's room here for vendors to capitalize
on our divisions, and, conversely, there's
potential for cost savings and syner when
we capitalize on our shared interests.
Conclusion
Every family knows the value of good
communication and the cost of bad
communication. It will surely benefit
firms to attempt true collaboration, even
if official changes to firm infrastructure
are not feasible. If directors and C-suite
professionals cannot engage in new cross-
departmental roundtables, try to leverage
analysts or coordinators from different
teams already operating in hub-and-spoke
models to practice groups. Challenge business
development and practice group management
teams to get to know the research analysts
specializing in their assigned practice
areas, or see if they'd be willing to have a
research analyst show them the prominent
research resources in that field so they have
more comprehensive knowledge of firm
offerings when servicing attorneys and
clients. Consider how general awareness of
what other teams are doing can empower
individual employees and benefit the firm as
a whole.
Perhaps you can introduce your library
team to ILTA's wealth of information. A more
diverse ILTA population would be wonderful,
but the end goal is more than that: true "peer
powered" firms recognizing the strengths
and skills of information professionals
of all kinds, working together as valued
contributors and co-laborers. ILTA
