Succeed in the New Law Firm Library Reality—Learn the Business Side of the Firm with AALL’s December Webinar

Whether a brief but painful aberration or a whole new world for law firms, the economic events of the past year have been cataclysmic for the legal community. In order to understand the implications for firm libraries and librarians, it is important to understand the business side of law firms and how administrators view the library.

Join Barry Strauss, executive director of Wiley Rein, as he shares his insight on what it takes to be successful in the new law firm reality. Succeed in the New Law Firm Library Reality will take place on December 9 at 12 pm Eastern. A panel of firm librarians will ask Strauss specific questions to get to the heart of the issues. Webinar participants will also have an opportunity to contribute questions during the session.

Participants will build knowledge and understanding in the areas of law firm business models, law firm administrative realities, and how administrators view the library. Participants will gain a better understanding of the business side of law firms and learn how to better position themselves and their services in the new law firm reality.

Register by December 2.

The 2010 “Call for Papers” Has Begun

Have you been thinking of writing an article of interest to law librarians?  Need a push to get started?  Well, here it is.

The  The AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Committee is soliciting articles in three categories:

• Open Division: For active and retired AALL members and law librarians with five or more years of professional experience.
• New Members Division: For recent graduates and AALL members who have become law librarians since July 1, 2005.
• Student Division: Participants in this division need not be members of AALL. To be eligible in this category, you must have been enrolled in law school or in a library school, information management, or an equivalent program, either in the fall 2009 or spring 2010 semester.

The winner in each division receives $750 generously donated by LexisNexis plus the opportunity to present the winning paper at a program during the AALL Annual Meeting in Denver. Winning papers are also considered for publication in the Association’s prestigious Law Library Journal. 

Application form and details, including a list of past winners, can be found at the Call for Papers website. Selected winning papers from earlier competitions can also be found online. This list can give you an idea of the range of topics that law librarians have chosen. 

Deadlines:

• Articles in the Open and New Members Divisions must be submitted by March 2, 2010. 
• Articles in the Student Division must be submitted by April 15, 2010.

If you have any questions, please contact a member of the AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Committee: Chair James M. Donovan (jdonovan@uga.edu), David Hollander (dholland@princeton.edu), or Connie Lenz (lenzx009@umn.edu).

Learn How to Field Complex Foreign and International Law Research Questions

As a law librarian, you never know when you’ll be pulled into an area in which you’ve had very little exposure. Today you’re working in your comfort zone; tomorrow you’re expected to find targeted information for a foreign and international law question and don’t know where to begin.

AALL’s November webinar, Global Legal Research: Routes to Success (November 19, 12 p.m. EDT) will help you hit the ground running. Join two global research experts as they discuss how to approach global research, sensible starting points, legal systems and terminology, resource strategies, collections, and more. 

Register by November 13.

Make Your Legislators Listen – Free Online Advocacy Training

Help improve access to legal information and strengthen AALL’s voice in government decisions – join our advocacy team. If you’re interested in learning the tools you need to make your legislators listen when you have something to say, we invite you to sign up for AALL’s free online advocacy training session, Join AALL’s Advocacy Team: How to Deliver Our Message, on October 14, from 1-2 p.m. EDT.

Speakers are AALL Government Relations Office staff members, Mary Alice Baish and Emily Feldman, and “advocacy guru” Stephanie Vance, guest speaker at AALL’s 2009 Day on the Hill. Vance will explain how to develop and deliver a message to your representatives about the importance of free online access to Congressional Research Service reports and the digital authentication of online legal resources. Register today!

AALL Thinks Strategically

Next year the AALL 2005-2010 Strategic Directions come to an end. AALL members, with the Executive Board Strategic Directions Committee, will craft a new Strategic Directions plan. The Strategic Directions Committee has created a new blog, Thinking Strategically, to get the ideas and conversations started. Visit the blog and share your thoughts on the first three questions:

1. How do we seize the moment and make it our own?

2. Where do we, law librarians, want to be in the next 3 years?

3. What is required of us to create the world that we envision?

Discover the Real Value of Your Information Contracts

You know what you pay for your subscriptions, but what is the real value of the content within your contracts? With more information available electronically, the content of the contracts—as well as how we negotiate them—has changed significantly in the last 10 years. Discovering the Real Value of Your Information Contracts, a webinar to be held on September 16, from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. Central, will review changes in contracts, past and present, and arm you with tactics and techniques so that you have the information to negotiate intelligently.

 Webinar attendees will learn:

• How contracts are done from the vendor’s side (aka, learn to translate vendor justification tactics)
• Practical tips and techniques for reviewing your own contracts
• Action steps to evaluate the value of your contracts

Register by September 9.

Form a Successful Competitive Intelligence Team in Your Law Firm

The economic downturn has made business and competitive intelligence more important than ever for law firms. The library and marketing departments need to work side by side to achieve both the short- and long-term strategic goals of the firm. Attend Competitive Intelligence: Working Side by Side with Marketing on July 15, from 12-1 p.m. (EST), as a panel of competitive intelligence experts present case studies and explain how to work collaboratively in managing the expectations of all parties involved in intelligence collection and application.

In this webinar you will learn:

• How the library/research, CI, and marketing departments interrelate in law firm strategic initiatives and how to help make the relationship successful
• How the library, marketing, and KM teams can work together to support practice group initiatives for business development and client retention
• How library/research as well as marketing/business development collaborate to provide the firm with the tools to grow its business in this challenging market

Register by July 9 at 5 p.m. (CST).

Prepare for the Next Step in your Career

Positioning yourself for the right career choices requires focused effort. It takes deliberate steps to increase your value proposition. Be proactive by joining your colleagues on June 26 at 12 p.m. EDT for Preparing for the Next Step in your Career.

Explore the qualities, skills, and abilities necessary to compete and succeed in today’s environment. Find out what employers seek in candidates and what you can do to reach the next step in your career.

Speakers include Judy Meadows, state librarian of Montana, past AALL president, and chair of the Leadership Development Special Committee; and Germayne Cade of Korn Ferrry/FutureStep, a global recruitment and executive search firm for middle management professionals.

Register by June 22.

Save Time and Money with Your Next License Agreement Negotiation

Negotiating licensing agreements for e-resources is often a burden. The Shared Electronic Resource Understanding (SERU) allows libraries and publishers to forgo the traditional negotiation process in favor of using a set of “common understandings.” AALL’s June webinar, The Shared Electronic Resource Understanding (SERU): Can It Work in My Library, to be held June 9, at 1 p.m. EDT, is sponsored by the New England Law Library Consortium and the AALL Committee on Relations with Information Vendors.

Hear how both librarians and publishers feel about SERU and how SERU is used in practice. What are the legal implications of SERU? Is it feasible in the law library setting? Using a contracts perspective, librarians and publishers alike can learn how using SERU will affect their business relationships.

Registration fees are only $10 for both AALL members and non-members. Register by June 5.

Register for May AALL Webinar on Libraries and Social Software

What is social software? How and why would you use it? How do libraries use social software as a way to engage staff and patrons in a fast-changing Internet environment? Plan to attend a Webinar on social software on May 20, from 12-1 p.m. EDT, as Sarah Glassmeyer, reference librarian from University of Kentucky, helps us explore social software use in a library context. Register by May 15.