Managing the evolution of legal libraries and information services

NH Harrington Hall Hotel - Click here for venue details



Never before has it been more important for law firm information service professionals to develop and fine-tune their negotiation skills to agree lower prices with suppliers and cut costs. Within the context of the current economic climate, law firm Finance Directors and senior managerswill be calling upon librarians to prove the value of the information services they provide to the firm, to justify their purchases and to manage their departments with more limited resources.

This conference will provide you with the tools you need to respond to this new climate of justifying one’s existence. In addition to supplier negotiation skills, speakers will address cost-cutting techniques and ideas for innovation in information services that can be implemented on a shoe-string budget. A legal publisher panel will also provide you with the perfect opportunity to quiz the suppliers themselves on current and future trends in journal and subscription pricing.

On Day Two, a lively debate will be encouraged around the pros and cons of outsourcing information services to cut costs, which will give you the opportunity to put forward your opinions and to decide whether or not a move in that direction would be right for your firm.

When justifying your overheads, it always helps if you can demonstrate good utilisation of your library services by fee earners and their clients. Speakers will provide you with new techniques for marketing your information service to other departments in the firm, again, within the constraints of a limited budget.

Collaboration with other departments can assist in effectively promoting the profile of the library internally and, at this conference, speakers will provide you with ideas for collaborating with the marketing, business development and knowledge management departments and other support functions on an ongoing basis. Additionally, there will be a case-study from Osborne Clarke exploring how you can bring together your business intelligence and information services teams.

Finally, this conference will explore the future evolution of the role of the law firm “librarian” and the law firm “library” and will address questions around the new skills and ways of working that the law firm information service professional will need to adopt and develop in order to survive in the future information environment.