The Private Law Librarians and Information Professionals
Special Interest Section of AALL has released two new Resource Guides on strategic planning and intranets. They also reissued a major revision of a previously published guide on internet research.The Guides are
free and available to law librarians and legal information professionals as
well as law firm administrators who are interested in learning about best
practices for managing information services. These guides are “slick” professional publications which combine high quality content with a visually polished presentation. Steve Lastres, Chair of the PLLIP Communications Committee, Natalie Lira, Communications Committee Member and Cheryl Niemeier, Chair of PLLIP deserve special credit for sheperding these Guides from concept through publication.
PLLIP members Anna Irvin, Natalie M. Lira, Saskia Mehlhorn and Lindsay Carpino.
Since 2007 the law firm market has been in a continuous state of reinvention.
Firms are facing competition from alternative
service provides, increased pressure from clients to control costs and offer
alternative billing arrangements, Firms are exploring offshoring, onshoring,
outsourcing and new types of partnership structures. It is more important than
ever for information professionals to reassess their mission, goals, structure
and services to maintain alignment with the strategic goals of their
organization. The resource guide highlights some of the non-traditional
initiatives which information professionals are undertaking to improve
strategic alignment including centralization, collaboration with other
departments, embedding practice specialists, competitive intelligence,
knowledge management, practice portal development, risk management and
non-traditional outreach.
Planning Resource guide provides a step by step outline for the strategic
planning process which can be used as a tutorial for newer managers and a
checklist for more experienced professionals.
and Nola M.Vanhoy.Law Firm intranets have become important knowledge sharing
platforms which provide access to key firm, client, administrative and staff
data. As law libraries are going digital, intranets provide access to full text
treatise libraries, online databases, knowledge repositories, and educational
platforms. The resource guide addresses key issues facing information
professionals who want to develop the firms first intranet or enhance an
existing intranet, Topics include:
selection and design, collaboration, project justification, content creation,
Sharepoint tools, alternatives to intranets. Extranets and continuous
improvement.
Niemeier. According to an ABA study
50.8% of lawyers begin their legal research using free internet resources.
Information professionals are the uniquely qualified to assess the risks of free legal research resources. They are often
the only professionals at the firm engaged in training lawyers on internet “hygiene” and
creating resources and intranets which direct lawyers to the most cost effective
and reliable internet resources. The guide includes an important discussion on
authority and guidelines for assessing reliability of resources. There is
guidance on best practices for legal research on the internet as well as using
mobile apps for legal research.