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Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library & Information Service Centers

INTRODUCTION
Thursday, February 24, 2011 New York, NY

Demographics
Number of Attendees
Law Firms: 45 Providers: 24

Law Firms Attending


Alston & Bird Baker & Hostetler Bingham McCutchen Borden Ladner Gervais Cahill Gordon & Reindel Cassels Brock & Blackwell Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz Cravath Swaine & Moore Debevoise & Plimpton Dechert DLA Piper Finnegan Henderson Fish & Richardson P.C Fox Rothschild Fraser Milner Casgrain Harris Beach PLLC Howrey Ice Miller King & Spalding Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel Manatt Phelps & Phillips Maples and Calder McKenna Long & Aldridge Nossaman Pitblado Schulte Roth & Zabel Schwegman Lundberg Stikeman Elliott Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease WilmerHale Winston & Strawn Skadden Arps Weil Gotshal Paul Weiss

Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library & Information Service Centers Outsourcing: Outrage or Opportunity
Jean OGrady, DLA Piper Ron Friedmann, Integreon
Thursday, February 24, 2011 New York, NY

Preface
Good to great companies focus on what to do They also put equal focus on what not to do and what to stop doing
Jim Collins Good to Great

Whats Outsourced Now


HR Administration

IT Banks
(beginning in the 1990s)

Legal Support Library/Info Service Mgmt

CRM Database Mgmt Library Service Mgmt Legal Research & KM Pitchbook Creation

Analytics & Reporting Advanced Research Marketing Support Finance & Accounting Data scrubbing Basic Research Word Processing

Law Firms

IT Support Contracts

Litigation Support E-Discovery & Document Review Finance & Accounting Business Development & Marketing Legal Word Processing

Law Departments
Contracts Legal Research & KM

Litigation Support E-Discovery & Document Review

Pitchbook Creation 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Practical Considerations
Outsourcing is not all or none Master service agreement Metrics Service Level Agreement (SLA). IT example:
Average speed to answer Wait time in queue Total call abandoned Average talk time Average handling time First call resolution Resolution time Customer satisfaction reviews

Insurance and risk management Protecting client confidences

Framing the Question


What kind of support do lawyers need? Which library functions are core?
Place versus service

How should firms provide lawyer support?


In-house v. outsourced (owned v. 3rd party) Centralized v. de-centralized Onsite v. offsite

Take the managing partner or COO view

Varieties of Outsourcing
Centralization or insourcing Vendor sourcing Targeted outsourcing Complete outsourcing

Whats Centralized Now?


Should firms centralize library resources? Can we justify a library in each office What is the theory of centralized v. decentralized operation?
Pro central: better economics and management Con central: potentially lower service level

Vendor Sourcing
Shift inefficiences back to the publishers that generate them Demand billing and publication practices that reduce internal workload
Digital billing/spreadsheets Precoded invoices

Charge publishers for the cost of inefficiences No one should be loose-leaf filing in the 21st Century! Where are the legal e-books!

Survey Whats Core?


Management of research services Research training for lawyers Business and other research - Legal Research - complex projects Custom news monitoring/alerts Contract/licensing negotiation Docket monitoring Business and other research - fact Legal Research - fact checking Acquisition of resources Cite checking Management of technical services Inter-library loan Document retrieval Managing serials subscriptions and Serials check-in/routing Cataloging resources Library system (ILS) maintenance Bill coding and processing Loose-leaf filing Shelving books
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Core Non-core

References
Vendor Sourcing: thinking the unthinkable as an alternative to outsourcing (Jean OGrady,, Dewey B Strategic Blog, Feb 16 2011. A Better Strategy for Law Firm Librarians (Above and Beyond KM, 26 Jan 2011) Testing Your Law Library Strategy (Geek Law Blog, 25 Jan 2011) Future-Proofing the Library (SLA blog, Steven Bell, 24 Jan 2011) Law Firm Librarians Defend Operating Costs (ABA Journal, Patrick Lamb, 18 Jan 2011) LPO Predictions for 2011 (Fronterion, Dec 2010) Law library outsourcing (Library Technician Dialog, Karen Sawatzky, 9 Dec 2010) Librarians and "Business Values (Geek Law Blog, 19 Nov 2010 Does It Pay to Hire a Law Firm Librarian? (ABA Journal, Patrick Lamb, 17 Nov 2010) Outsourcing Legal Information (Slaw.ca, Karen Sawatzky, 24 Aug 2010) Law Libraries Transformed (Eleanor Windsor and Ron Friedmann, LLRX.com, 4 July 2010)

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