Legal Librarians Reach The Top
New Technology Sending Legal Librarians to the Top
20% of Senior Legal Librarians now report to the highest level of management within their firms 88% of firms say Knowledge Management growing as proportion of their budget 90% of Senior Legal Librarians see their responsibilities increase.
Senior Legal Librarians are increasingly moving to the top of their firms as the new knowledge management technologies they govern become more crucial to delivering top quality legal services. According to research by Sweet & Maxwell amongst the Top 100 UK law firms over 20% of Senior Legal Librarians now either report directly to the Managing Partner/CEO or sit on the most senior management board of their firms.
The survey by Sweet & Maxwell, a Thomson business, found that Senior Legal Librarians are now at the forefront of new IT-led knowledge management, with 90% of them seeing their responsibilities grow over the last 5 years. Also 64% believe their status has risen in their firm during that time as new technology becomes more important to the long-term strategy and competitiveness of legal firms.
Jitendra Valera, Director of Sweet & Maxwell Legal Online Legal commented: "Knowledge management is now at the very core of law firms, and because of this, Senior Legal Librarians are now increasingly important within their firms. They really are the group that have driven forward new technologies. Lawyers are increasingly dependent on their knowledge management skills."
"The old perception of legal librarian's working away in small, dusty libraries, searching through volumes of legal texts is completely divorced from reality."
Jitendra Valera says the role of Senior Legal Librarian has increased dramatically as they are now responsible for the management of powerful online legal information services and practice tools, teams of researchers and ensuring lawyers are fully trained to use the latest research tools and supplied with all the additional information they need to pursue their sector specialisations.
Pat Pritchard, National Head of Information Services at leading law firm DLA commented; "My time is spent on management issues which includes negotiating on-line services - costs and contracts. Certainly the law library function works very differently now to that of say 10 years ago, a good deal of my teams day is spent on current awareness. New technology and the Internet means that our legal and business current awareness is bang up to date."
Reflecting the changing nature of their roles, 55% of Senior Legal Librarians saw their job titles change over the last five years. In fact half of all those holding the old Senior Legal Librarian role within their firm no longer even have the term "library" or "librarian" anywhere in their job titles.
Senior Legal Librarians increased status within their firms is being recognised by new job titles like "Head of Knowledge Management" and "Head of Information Services", which highlight their new managerial powers and IT knowledge.
Philippa Cunningham, a legal recruitment consultant at TFPL, says that a Director of Knowledge Management at the biggest law firms can command a salary of £100k with an additional bonus of up to 30% of salary on top of that.
An average salary for a Head Librarian at a Top 100 law firm would be around £45,000 up from £35,000 in 2000.
The survey also found that 88% of firms surveyed said that the share of internal budgets being allocated to legal libraries is rising. 88% of law firms also identified the introduction of new IT technologies as the cause of this increased spend.
However, unlike in many sectors, this increased investment is seen as having produced positive results, with 97% of law firms saying that the new IT technologies used in legal libraries have made a positive difference to the way they work.
Comments, Jitendra Valera: "Over the last ten years, there has been a massive change in the way legal librarians work. Senior Legal Librarians now find themselves managing a larger slice of a firm's spending and bigger teams of staff."
"Increasingly lawyers base their reputation on delivering the best researched and most robust legal solutions in a timely manner to their clients - the modern legal librarians' role is central to this."
"The future for the Legal Library Service is incredibly exciting. I expect us to see more investment in this area over the coming years."
"Senior Legal Librarians responsibilities are expected to grow further as law firms seek to further exploit their knowledge base through IT and as legal librarians use their research capabilities to assist marketing and management decision making."
