Tag Archives: Law Firm

Fall 2020

Chapman Cutler LLP Law Library

Last March, a few days before the lockdown ordered were issued, the Chicago office of Chapman found itself suddenly working from home.  We had someone in our building test positive and out of an abundance of caution, we were all instructed to work from home.  That was the last time many people have been in the office.  Our IT department has been wonderful and we already had many remote access services in place, which was helpful.  Over the course of the next few weeks all of our other offices went to a remote work environment as well.  Currently all offices are still under a work at home policy until the end of March, 2021.  People can go into the office as needed, but most people are still working from home. Continue reading Chapman Cutler LLP Law Library →

Fall 2020

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom Law Library

The Research & Knowledge staff of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom have been working from home since the beginning of the pandemic in March. We are a global firm with locations around the world. Because of this, the transition has not been as stressful as it could have been. We are well positioned from a contingency planning perspective, with library staff based in 8 locations in the United States and Europe, available to support research inquiries for all Skadden employees firm-wide. Continue reading Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom Law Library →

Fall 2020

Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP Law Library

As we welcomed 2020, my chief concern as the Library Manager at Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP was to determine the ultimate fate of a good chunk of our print collection. Our firm had recently renewed the lease on our office space and with that came an initiative for tenant improvements. Plans had been finalized for firm-wide renovations and as I am sure you have already guessed, the call for “improvements” to library space mostly included that one charge we all dread: a reduction in our footprint. Continue reading Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP Law Library →

Fall 2015

Law Firm Librarian Current Awareness Resources

My colleagues and I have been taking turns leading our weekly Reference meetings. For my colleague, Britnee Cole’s meeting, she discussed all of the professional current awareness resources we use as law firm librarians. As we all know, we are inundated with news alerts, feeds, tweets, blogs, listservs, emails, newsletters and more. But where do we start? Many of us use news aggregators such as Manzama, Zite, FlipBoard, Feedly or Pulse to keep organized.

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What are the professional current awareness resources we are using?

Continue reading Law Firm Librarian Current Awareness Resources →

Spring 2015

Anticipating User Needs within a Firm Environment

Meeting user needs extends far beyond the reference desk. As librarians, one of our main goals is to assist the user in making their day easier. We can do this by anticipating needs or determining the best use of our services.

Within a law firm setting, attorneys spend time on business development and client research. This is a major area of opportunity for the library. We, as librarians, have the skills and research tools needed to help attorneys in this endeavor, so why not get involved?

Attorneys probably do not realize the resources the library has access to, some of which are not billed back to the client. Another bonus!

Continue reading Anticipating User Needs within a Firm Environment →

Winter 2015

Law Firm v. Academic Librarians

I recently graduated from library school and started my law librarianship career. Although I had previously set out to become an academic law school reference librarian, I was presented with a wonderful opportunity to begin my law librarianship career at a top law firm. I am often asked how being an academic reference librarian is different than a law firm librarian. Continue reading Law Firm v. Academic Librarians →