Another One Of Those Articles Asking If Law Firms Need Librarians

Of course the article’s author? Patrick Lamb is a founding member of Valorem Law Group who it appears are in the job of trying to make law firms more efficient .. and as long as we can remember that always means .. let’s see how much we can pull out of the library / KM centre for starters


Of course they put it a little more politely that HOB..

Valorem Law Group is a litigation firm representing business interests. Valorem helps clients solve their business disputes and coping with pressures to reduce legal spend using nontraditional approaches, including use of nonhourly fee structures, coordination with LPOs or contract lawyers, joint-venturing with other firms and implementation of project management tools to handle lawsuits or portfolios of litigation.

You can read the full ABA article at? http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/does_it_pay_to_hire_a_law_firm_librarian

Here’s his conclusion (below italics) and frankly we think it’s bullshit.

We’ve seen and heard of so many partners or marketing directors at law firms over the last 20 years who thought they could manage information better than the people who have spent years training for and running libraries.? Just because they know how to do a good legal search or these days even dumber a good google search they seem to think that qualifies them for? running an information centre at a law firm

If your firm is dim enough to hire a man who’s going to suggest to the partners? taht the library manager be dumped in favour of the marketing manager it’s time to look for another job and quickly. This will serve two purposes you can resign with pride and also you’ll be able to command a higher package when they beg to have you back

After reading articles like this for the past decade we’re amazed that people still will pay money to have consultants tell them this stuff..

If you have someone who is really good at finding the right information, why would a firm need, or even want, to draw a line between where that information came from? But firms do precisely this when they have a “knowledge officer” (internally created information) and a “head librarian” (externally created information). Frankly, information is information regardless of its origin, and one person should manage it. But you can further imagine the important ties that should exist between the marketing department and the knowledge librarian (business development) and between the accounting department and the knowledge librarian (pricing). The library itself may be pass?, but the role of the librarian, viewed in this light, is becoming more critical as the volume of information in the world grows.

Do law librarians see it this way? I?m not so sure. In a recent survey, a small group of law librarians was asked to describe the value they bring to the organization. No one described anything similar to what is described above. In fact, several responses were along these lines: ?loyal accurate, friendly and smart?; ?intelligent, hard-working, very efficient?; ?cataloging skills and knowledge?; ?hard worker, always willing to help.?

There seems to be a gap here. One of my favorite quotes is from Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff, currently Secretary of the Veterans Administration. He said, ?If you dislike change, you?re going to dislike irrelevance even more.?

This post is really a head-fake though. It?s not really about librarians. It?s a challenge to everybody to figure out how to add real value to the enterprise. If you?re not adding value, you?ll be getting used to irrelevance.

Patrick Lamb is a founding member of Valorem Law Group, a litigation firm representing business interests. Valorem helps clients solve their business disputes and coping with pressures to reduce legal spend using nontraditional approaches, including use of nonhourly fee structures, coordination with LPOs or contract lawyers, joint-venturing with other firms and implementation of project management tools to handle lawsuits or portfolios of litigation.