AALL PLLIP-SIS Members Presenting at Legal Week

Private Law Librarians & Information Professionals SIS members will be participating in Legalweek 2024. On Monday, January 29, AALL PLLIP-SIS members will present three educational programs tailored specifically to legal information professionals.

• “Bridging the Gap: Actionable Opportunities for Firm-Academic Technology Collaboration” / Leigh Zeiser (BakerHostetler); Patrick Parsons (Georgia State University College of Law); and Michelle Hook Dewey (Georgia State University)
• “AI Empowering Your Law Practice: From Selecting a Tool to Partnering with a Vendor” / Katherine Lowry (BakerHostetler); Elaine Dick (BakerHostetler); and Joseph Breda (Bloomberg Law)
• “Practical Implications of Generative AI in Law Firms” / Emily Florio (DLA Piper); June Liebert (O’Melveny & Myers); and Victor Chavez (Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton)

The full 2024 Agenda is available here.

Leader Profile: All in on Law Librarianship

Jeremy Sullivan, Senior Manager of Competitive Intelligence, DLA Piper

Reposted with permission from AALL Spectrum, Volume 28, Number 3 (January/February 2024), pgs 26-29

In what has become an all-too-familiar story, Jeremy Sullivan found his way to law librarianship by accident. After receiving his BA in history from the University of California, Davis, he struggled to find a job. Unsure of what to do, he remembered he had enjoyed working in a public library, so he decided to apply for a master’s in library science. “As soon as I got accepted into library school, I also received my first job in a law library,” said Sullivan. As a result, he ended up putting library school on the back burner for a few years while he gained real-world work experience. By the time he decided to get his MLS, he was all in on law librarianship.

Sullivan’s first job after completing his MLS was as a research librarian. “I had kind of been working as a research librarian at Morrison and Foerster, which was my first firm, and when I got a new job at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, I was a full-fledged reference librarian,” said Sullivan. He earned his MLS from San Jose State University in 2000. He stayed at Wilson Sonsini from 2000-2004 before moving to Morgan Lewis’s Palo Alto office as the solo manager of the library, a position he held until 2006. From there he advanced his career by taking on a position as a research services manager with Greenberg Traurig. He joined DLA Piper (U.S.) in 2010, beginning his career as a research and library services manager. After spending over six years in the role, he transitioned to manager of competitive intelligence and analytics at the firm. In his position, he provided oversight of the competitive intelligence research function at the firm, and routinely utilized, leveraged, and evaluated business and legal research analytics platforms with an eye toward uncovering knowledge and enhancing the firm’s competitive advantage. He recently became the senior manager of competitive intelligence at the firm.

Sullivan has been an American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) member since June 1998. He has been an active member of the Northern California Association of Law Libraries (NOCALL), serving as president from 2022-2023. He also served as a member at large for the Private Law Librarians & Information Professionals Special Interest Section. He is currently a member of the Council of Chapter Presidents. He is also a frequent speaker at conferences, including at the AALL Annual Meeting.

Here, he discusses generative AI, shares how his experience has propelled his career, and presents ideas for recruiting new members into the profession.

Practical Competitive Intelligence: The Thinker & The Doer

Reposted with permission from AALL Spectrum, Volume 28, Number 3 (January/February 2024), pgs 40-41

By Josh Farley, Coordinator Competitive Intelligence, Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP

Why balancing tactical and strategic intelligence is vital to building a successful competitive intelligence function.

Competitive intelligence (CI) can help law firm marketing and business development (MBD) teams gain insights, identify opportunities, and avoid threats in a dynamic and competitive legal environment. But how should CI professionals approach their work? Should they prioritize tactical intelligence support for MBD activities—like profiling potential and current clients, gathering information for requests for proposals (RFPs), and matching conference attendees with the firm’s list of clients? Or should they devote more time and resources to strategic planning—such as monitoring industry trends, assessing competitor capabilities, and developing thought leadership?

The answer is not “either-or” but “both-and.” CI professionals possess a unique perspective that transcends firm silos. They have the ability to connect dots that may not be immediately evident to the MBD team, which is often focused on the day-to-day activities of their specific practice or sector. This insight also differs from the C-suite’s perspective, which, while maintaining a high-level view of firm operations, often lacks the bandwidth to monitor day-to-day activities firm-wide. As CI professionals, it is important to incorporate both roles into your position in a way that aligns with your firm’s goals and priorities. Below, I will explore the relationship between tactical and strategic intelligence in legal CI and provide a framework for finding the delicate balance necessary to thrive.

Resource Review – Dictionary Archive / dictionaryarchive.com

By Mikhail Koulikov, Research Analyst, Winston & Strawn LLP

Court opinions throughout the U.S., and at all levels, frequently refer to dictionary definitions of specific terms, either to confirm the meaning of a word that is not otherwise defined in a statute or a contract, or to provide evidence for how a term is usually understood[1]. This in turn means that attorneys often need access to both specific dictionaries, and to many different ones, across subjects and across years of publication.

So, how can law firm information professionals best serve our users’ information needs in this area? The easy answer, and the answer that we have traditionally relied on, has been to actually own copies of various dictionaries in our libraries’ physical collections. This was the easy answer, but, between the shift to remote work for both information professionals and for attorneys, and the radical downsizing and often complete elimination of print collections at many law firms, the easy answer is often no longer feasible.

One option that is always useful to keep in mind is electronic access through a local public library. For example, the New York Public Library offers patrons remote access to both the Oxford English Dictionary, and to the entire Oxford Dictionaries Online suite. Another is just-in-time access to the collection of a membership library such as the New York Law Institute. Similarly, Columbia University’s Diamond Law Library runs both a Subscription Service and a pay-as-you-go Document Delivery Service, and both offer access to copies from throughout the Columbia University library system. And many legal information professionals are familiar with WTS TechSearch, the “full-service, one-stop document delivery source” affiliated with the University of Wisconsin library system.

2023 PLLIP-SIS Summit and AALL Annual Meeting Recaps: Adapting to Change

By Sarah Glassmeyer, Senior Solution Analyst, DBA Legaltech Hub

Thanks to a generous grant from the AALL PLLIP-SIS, I was able to attend the 2023 AALL conference in addition to the PLLIP Summit.This was the first time I had attended an AALL Annual Meeting as a non-vendor (or as someone about to go work for a vendor) since 2010. To say I was nervous was an understatement. On top of my general social anxiety, I still worry about not being a “real librarian” even though I probably use my librarian skills more than ever in the current iteration of my career.

I found the conference to be extremely energizing and, as I’m constantly in a state of trying to figure out what next to do in my life, very clarifying as it helped me determine what is interesting and important to me professionally. It has prompted many questions, two of which I will cover here:

Are Librarians Adapting to New Environments or Are Librarian Skills Just More Important Than Ever?

A theme I noticed throughout the conference and Summit – both spoken and implied – was the importance of librarians’ skills and knowledge in this current era. We are living in a Cambrian Explosion for technological tools and technologically enhanced workflows. And, as with the original Cambrian Explosion, not everyone and everything is going to survive the oncoming period of changes.