10 Ways Data Science Can Help Law Librarians

Reposted with permission from AALL Spectrum, Volume 25, Number 5 (May/June 2021), pgs. 16-19.

By Sarah Lin, Information Architect & Digital Librarian at RStudio, PBC

As law librarians, many of us scrutinize the data we have access to with Excel and out-of-the-box visualization tools. Whether that data is from docket activity, research databases, websites, or online catalogs, what we have can generally be described as “usage data.” But what one skill set would allow us to do so much more with that data, to better understand and communicate what our users are doing and what they need? Enter, data science.

Broadly speaking, data science brings opportunities to work more quickly and easily with data. It provides better reporting formats by incorporating outside data from various sources, and can even turn text into data that can be displayed visually. Even though legal information isn’t always associated with data, science, or data science, data science skills enable law librarians to do their jobs with greater efficiency. With data science skills, we are able to show new value for our teams and organizations, so it is definitely worth the time invested.

Even in a year when time has been both condensed and stretched (when many of us picked up new hobbies, such as baking), learning to code for just one use case, such as replacing Excel as a data analysis tool, doesn’t make sense. Luckily, data science skills are useful for more than just data manipulation, and learning to code allows you to provide many more use cases than just creating better data visualizations for management. Cooking is a useful metaphor for data science: while it’s completely possible to eat take-out, frozen food, box mixes, and cereal for dinner, you can actually create healthier meals with the right tools, enhanced cooking skills, and a better understanding of ingredients. For example, pre-cut vegetables are available in grocery stores, but a chef ’s knife and some practice allow you to customize any meal you make as well as lower costs. Similarly, while you can do your job with Excel and a commercial tool such as Tableau or PowerBI, learning to do data science opens a window of opportunities to new and improved skills that do more than just create improved graphics for reports or budget projections.

The following 10 data science skills and techniques, along with descriptions of the amazing deliverables that are associated with them, are listed in a progressive skill-building sequence, and they will provide you with a fully stocked data science kitchen. Keep in mind that the examples in this article focus on the R programming language, even though data science can also be done in Python (which has similar and sometimes compatible resources for you to use). The power of data science using R or Python comes from the powerful skills and techniques they enable you to use to transform how you work with data in your day to-day job. It’s time to graduate from Excel and start cooking with gas!

Leader Profile of Diana Koppang: Data Enthusiast and Passionate Advocate for Law Librarians

Three Private Law Librarians and Information Professionals were honored this year as part of the 2020 Fastcase 50 —Cynthia Brown, Andre Davison, and Diana Koppang. Thanks to all of them for being such great representatives of law firm librarians. This week, we have been publishing profiles on each of the honorees. This profile is on Diana Koppang, Director of Research & Competitive Intelligence, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP.

Fastcase 50 profile:

Diana Koppang Director of Research & Competitive Intelligence, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP
https://twitter.com/dianalawlib

“Diana Koppang is a law librarian made to lead. It’s not just her encyclopedic knowledge of legal research services and techniques, it’s her passion for them. In addition to leading a team of research analysts at Neal Gerber, Diana has held numerous board and chair positions at the AALL, Ark Group, PLLIP, PIUG, and other legal technology groups. Most recently, she and her team led a group of researchers to create the most comprehensive analysis of legal analytics platforms available. Analytics services vary widely, and comparing them can be like comparing apples and oranges in six dimensions, but the survey Diana led for AALL admirably compared the services across all of them. Diana also dedicates countless hours to providing technology to legal aid agencies in Chicago advocating for tenants’ rights.”

Answers compiled by Megan Moltrup, Librarian at Baker & McKenzie LLP in Washington, DC.

What is your role at your law firm? 

Director of Research & Competitive Intelligence; I manage the research team who handle legal and business research, competitive intelligence, due diligence research for conflicts, and knowledge management.

What do you believe is the value you and your team bring to your firm? 

Our flexibility and creativity in finding solutions to problems and working as a team both within our department and with other departments and practice groups.

What has been the biggest single change you have seen in the industry? And what changes do you see ahead?

The development of competitive intelligence and knowledge management roles – these will continue to grow, especially in the KM space. But like with CI, we have to fight for those roles so that they aren’t assigned to marketing or I.T. That being said we need to find a way to explain why we are best suited for those roles while fully collaborating with those departments whose expertise is also needed to bring the fullest value of CI and KM to our organizations.

Name one thing that you or your team is doing this year to meet the challenges ahead.

We’ve made a lot of changes to our contracts in the last few months, especially given the lack of access to print while the firm works remotely. We’re taking advantage of a captive audience to bring more training to the attorneys – for both new and current products – to help them change the way they work.