the end-users are receiving timely and accurate information, and I believe our skills as information professionals will enable us to work with, and alongside, these new technologies that are enhancing workflows and streamlining routine tasks across a broad spectrum of sectors. There is a niche for us as a profession in that area.”
Training end-users is already part of the service delivered by the information service, and Jake sees AI literacy as an extension of that – similar to digital literacy in public libraries, and information literacy in the health and academic sectors.
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Beyond training, Jake says: “Current awareness was a big part of the role as well, so a lot of my morning was spent using software to gather information and important news updates on specific sectors, and disseminating that to particu- lar areas in email bulletin format. Similar to other libraries, each information professional works closely with specif- ic legal practice areas, so I liaised with commercial litigation, the international and UK energy teams, innovation and legal technology, and construction. Working and assisting in vastly different practice areas was really interesting. I got an in-depth overview into each of those practice areas; the types of work they were doing, and was able to tailor the services we provided in the library to meet their specific requirements.”
Knowledge Management is also crucial for the legal information profession, ensuring that the value of internal knowledge is maximised. This means
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making that knowledge discoverable and usable, largely through model documents (contracts, templates, letters etc.) that are captured and profiled accurately on the intranet.
The firm offers a research service to both solicitors and business support across all of its nine offices. Jake says: “The library enquiry desk, where research requests are sent to, is staffed 8.30am-6pm, Monday to Friday. It can field any number of dif- ferent information requests that come in during those hours. Some are quite simple tasks – such as running a bankruptcy search against an individual or running a winding up search against a company. “That service also caters to more in-depth research requests, where we are asked specific legal questions and our job is to provide information in the form of journal articles, book chapters, case law,
legislation, etc., that might potentially hold the answer to that question.” Jake tries to stay connected with the work of the solicitors and will follow the same RSS and email alerts that they are receiving, but adds that he also keeps on top of his own profession’s current awareness. He says: “I follow the work of CILIP and keep up to date with networks such as BIALL and CLIG (City Legal information group). I think you have to make a decision about what you read. I don’t read everything but I do make a conscious effort to keep myself informed.”
While no route into the profession is the same, there are some paths that feel familiar and as Jake points out if you “keep an open mind” then opportunities will arise. It’s up to you what you do with those opportunities. IP
September 2021
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