Crafting clear reasons

By Lisa Sylvester, National President, Australian Law Librarians’ Association; Regulatory Officer of Legal Services Commission Queensland

A judgment that is easy to read and understand is the ideal judgment that as legal researchers we would all like to find. Something so simple, and easy to understand, delivering thorough reasoning of the decision-maker in coming up with the concluding remarks.

Justice Alan Wilson (Supreme Court Judge and President of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal) addressed a recent conference of regulatory officers about the statutory obligations and good practice of making and delivering clear decisions, to assist the attendees to develop skills in writing their government department decisions.

AALL 2012: Learning, Growing and Connecting from an Australian perspective

Marisa Bendeich
President, Australian Law Librarians’ Association

I love conferences! Learning something new, meeting vendors, connecting with colleagues, finding new friends, dancing, eating…and did I mention the free pens? What’s not to love!?

Demonstrating the value of your legal research programme

by Pamela Stephens, National Training Librarian, Ashurst Australia.

Our articled clerks (graduates) participate in an intense programme aimed at building their legal research skills in the first three months of joining us. They attend a one hour workshop every two weeks on legal research method (that is, how to find judicial consideration, NOT how to use LexisNexis). Our passionate and creative training librarians try to make these workshops as engaging as possible, with games, competitions, video and lots of hands on participation. The feedback is always great!

How to win friends and influence people…

by James Mullan, KM Systems Manager at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP and BIALL President-Elect.

…become a Law Firm Librarian of course…

I know this is the case following my attendance at the Australian Law Librarians Association (ALLA) in Canberra at the end of September where I attended as the official British & Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) delegate. Called ACTioning the Law the conference provided a number of opportunties for Law Librarians to hear about how law was created in Australia, to hear about developments in making legislation and other resources available online and to understand how technolgical advances were impacting on the work of Law Librarians.