So far we’ve been quiet about the ALM Law Librarians Survey 2013, a survey done of AmLaw 200 law firms each year. The survey results were announced earlier this month, and were officially released at the American Association of Law Libraries conference last Tuesday. I attended the release with analysis by Kevin Iredell, VP of ALMLegal Intelligence. This was the 12th year for the survey, and is typically answered by the head librarian in each firm.

From the related The American Lawyer article by Alan Cohen:

By now, it’s a phrase that law firm library directors likely hear

SmartChicago is a group formed with the aim of using technology to better the lives of Chicagoans. Among other things, they support centres that help citizens get access to their health records, they promote free broadband access, they work to improve citizens’ technological skills — and they try to make relevant laws easier to understand.

To assist with this last aim, they’ve done a very practical and perhaps surprising thing: they’ve opened an account on the Rap Genius site, a place to go to learn the meaning of a lot of rap lyrics — or poems, or items in the . . . [more]

One of the final sessions at this week’s American Association of Law Libraries conference offered participants a guided opportunity to work with the yet-in-beta Congress.gov. As THOMAS “himself” confirmed, the venerable THOMAS.gov — now the ripe age of 18 years — is looking to retire:

THOMAS will be retired! Tomorrow at 2:30 PDT we'll tweet about its replacement, #Congressdotgov. #aall13 http://t.co/FIOKzk6K7Q

— Congressdotgov (@congressdotgov) July 15, 2013

As we noted and discussed at the time, the Congress.gov public beta was launched several months ago. It has received several iterative updates since then: inclusion of the Congressional Record, . . . [more]

It is important for all persons working in the legal field to have an understanding of how this impacts on perpetual access to legal information from the federal government.

This email was sent to members of the infodep listserv (from the Depository Services Program) on July 8, 2013:

“The new Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) Procedures for Publishing are now in effect. These procedures clarify the continuing role of Publishing and Depository Services during the Government of Canada’s transition to electronic publishing.

They apply to all departments listed in Schedules I, I.1 and II of the Financial Administration Act,

I am reporting today from a session at the American Association of Law Libraries 106th Annual Meeting. This morning I am attending a session on Business and Competitive Intelligence.

The session is a cooperative effort between AALL and the International Legal Technology Association. The AALL program app shares the intention of the session:

The session started with an overview survey, mainly answered by law librarians, to identify themes of how law libraries in firms supported BI and CI. The five major themes were:

.

Law Librarians shared stories of their BI and CI efforts. Firm library teams have created interesting . . . [more]

As law firms tackle the new reality of the economy and the changes being demanded by corporate clients, they should look to those within the firms who are already well-versed in strategy for business change: librarians.

I am currently in Seattle at the American Association of Law Libraries annual conference, including the Private Law Libraries’ Summit on Saturday. The message we are hearing from a number of different perspectives is clear: lawyers would be advised to seek help in re-developing their firms so they are better positioned for competitive advantage, and librarians are well suited for the C suite, . . . [more]

Law librarians, law practitioners, and others interested in thoughts on the future of law practice will be interested in a provocative new piece by Jordan Furlong: The Future is Now: Eight Emerging Roles for Law Librarians. It appears in the July 2013 issue of Thomson Reuters’s Practice Innovations.

Jordan offers thoughts on new potential opportunities for law librarians and knowledge management professionals—often themselves librarians by training—in new law firm models that he foresees developing in response to multi-factored legal market disruptions. He suggests,

Starting now, law librarians and KM personnel have the opportunity to integrate themselves into the

I’m egregiously late on this, but on the “better late than never” theory” I’m finally reporting that the Farber Financial Group has produced a smart phone app for insolvency lawyers. RESOLVE comes in Android and iOS versions, and there’s a web-based version that should run well on a BlackBerry. In fact, if you want to check it out before you download, give the web-based version a try and you’ll see most of the features it offers.

The features are described on the Farber website as including:

• Searchable, portable Canadian, US and Global Bankruptcy Statutes and Regulations (e.g. Bankruptcy & Insolvency

A press release shared that William S. Hein & Co. and Fastcase announced a publishing partnership today. Hein will share federal and state case law to subscribers via links provided by Fastcase. Fastcase will integrate HeinOnline’s law review and historical legislation. The press release goes into greater detail about the linkages and even discusses how customers will see this material.

This is pretty exciting news. I am looking forward to hearing the reactions of AALL Members at the American Association of Law Libraries 106th Annual Meeting and Conference which kicks off this coming weekend. . . . [more]

Recently my friend and colleague (and fellow Slaw-yer) Joan Rataic-Lang and I spent five six weeks walking the historic pilgrimage route, the Camino Frances, which for us started in St. Jean Pied-de-Port, France, and carried us through the Pyrenees and across northern Spain–a total of 780 km. We learned many personal lessons along the way, but surprisingly we also learned many things that apply to work. I thought it time to start sharing some of what I learned.

Most days we got up at 6 am and started our walk at 7 am. Ideally we would have some yoghurt . . . [more]

Summer has finally arrived. The on purpose plantings have finally overtaken the weeds and the chickens are big enough that they don’t have to be chased indoors at night. These are signs that it is past time to execute the big summer project.

The big summer project this year is adding to the firm archives. Part of the library portfolio at my firm is collecting, describing, and housing the firm archives. We had a consultant work up a plan for archival description, set up a holdings list, and start the archives collection a couple of years ago. We have a . . . [more]

Today’s conclusion of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) 2012-2013 session calendar— after a burst of some high-profile opinions—is an opportune occasion for a reminder of the fantastic resource that is SCOTUSblog. The site’s been around since the relatively early days of blogs—2002—and it has been discussed or referenced on this blog a few times. Indeed, a Google search for “SCOTUS” returns SCOTUSblog before it does the home for SCOTUS itself:

SCOTUSblog can be seen as a superb example of an excellent public resource supported by commercial partners, including a legal publisher. It started small and rather . . . [more]