The San Diego Union Tribune reports
David Whelan, who began Monday, hails from Toronto and has 25 years of legal information experience
The San Diego Law Library, which provides free legal information to the general public, has a new director.
David Whelan, who started Monday, comes from Toronto, where he was the director of legal information at the Law Society of Ontario’s Great Library. Before that, he was the director at the Cincinnati Law Library Association and director of the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Resource Center.
The law library dates to 1891 in San Diego County. It is currently housed next to the downtown San Diego jail. The library is an independent public agency established under state law. It is commonly used by solo practitioners who don’t have the budget for database subscriptions and collections of legal tomes, as well as by self-represented litigants and law students.
Whelan is taking the helm as the library emerges from the pandemic. In-person access to the library was restricted at certain points during the pandemic, prompting the library to provide the public greater remote access to its databases and information. The in-person experience has also been noisy, as the neighboring jail constructs an underground tunnel linking to the new courthouse a block away.
“Public access to legal information is a foundation of democratic nations,” Whelan said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to helping San Diegans get the information that will help them solve their legal issues. The pandemic has accelerated changes in expectations about how that access can occur, and the San Diego Law Library will remain focused on making that access as easy as possible, across the county.”
He replaces John Adkins, who oversaw the law library for the past 12 years and retired at the end of last year. Adkins managed the library through a major renovation and budget cuts that resulted in the closing of branches in East and South County. The library’s only remaining branch, in the Vista courthouse complex, is expected to undergo a big renovation in the near future.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/story/2022-03-17/san-diego-law-library-director
Here’s his self written bio at
David Whelan was educated as a lawyer and librarian and has worked in information environments for most of his career. He started working in law firms in high school, joining a legal technology software company while in college. His technology and legal background led him to the Southern Methodist University School of Law where he was the first electronic services librarian and then the Head of Technology and Computing Services. He moved north to join the American Bar Association as director of the Legal Technology Resource Center, based in Chicago. David started to write and present frequently on law, technology, and information topics across the U.S. Wanting to return to more traditional libraries, he became the 10th law librarian and director of the Cincinnati Law Library Association, a member/subscription library in Ohio that is over 175 years old. Most recently he moved north to work at The Law Society of Upper Canada and work on information projects for the organization that regulates lawyers in Ontario. He manages the Great Library, Corporate Records and Archives, and works on a variety of information projects. David continues to write and speak on information and law practice management topics.
David is married with 3 children. He likes to spend as much time outdoors as possible, whether camping or gardening, and preferably with his family and their dog. David is a fan of folk and world music, playing the Great Highland bagpipes, small pipes, and dabbling with the didjeridu and bodhran. He loves listening to bhangra, celtic punk, Arab dance, and high life in particular.
