Where do Legal Information Professionals work?
Academic Institutions
Universities which run law courses for students often have legal subject librarians and may make their legal collection available to local firms. The major research collections are at Squire Library (Cambridge), Bodleian library (Oxford), Trinity College Dublin and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (London).
Law Firms
Over 150 law firms in Britain and Ireland employ Legal Information Professionals. They may work as small one-person units or within large teams. Law firm library and information centres often provide commercial as well as legal information and Legal Information Professionals' roles often combine knowledge management of in-house data with library management.
National Government
Parliament, Government departments and the Court Service have law libraries. The largest are at the Home Office and the Supreme Court.
Libraries for legal professionals
These include the Law Society library for solicitors, the four Inns of Court libraries for barristers, the Advocates library in Edinburgh.
They provide a resource for their members, but some also provide a commercial service to law firms and the public.
Industry and Commerce
Nationwide a lot of companies have legal libraries or information centres employing Legal Information Professionals.
Freelance/consultant
Freelance law librarians and consultants are a pretty disparate group. They may work for one or two law firms exclusively; for academic institutions or commercial businesses; take on one-off projects for clients in legal or other organisations, run libraries or work on contract with larger information consultancies. Freelancers are (currently) doing everything from looseleafing to building taxonomies, organising conferences, database design, editing publications, sales representation, CPD training - and much more.
