The American Association of Law Libraries’ (AALL) 2023 State of the Profession report, an extensive 252 page survey detailing the legal information environment, affirms that law librarians hold a central role in the testing, recommendation, and deployment of legal technology across diverse settings, including law firms, corporate legal departments, academia, and government.
This survey represents the third iteration conducted by AALL, composed of three distinct surveys targeting US law librarians based on their organizational affiliation: one for those in firm and corporate settings, one for those in academic institutions, and one for those in government roles. The survey thoroughly examines various aspects of the profession, such as library budgets, working environments, staffing, professional skills, and professional development.
Findings related to legal technology continue to underscore the instrumental role law librarians play in fostering innovation and technology adoption within their organizations. This mirrors observations made in the AALL’s 2021 report and the 2019 report.
A Crucial Role in Technology Procurement
For law librarians situated in firms and corporate legal departments, the survey reveals they “play a crucial role in bringing new technology and research products to their organizations.” Specifically, their involvement spans several key areas:
- Testing technology and research products: 89.1%
- Recommending technology and research products for purchase: 94.5%
- Negotiating library, information resource, and database contracts: 100%
In addition, 100% of firm and corporate librarians are responsible for overseeing research databases. Approximately 36% oversee their organizations’ knowledge management systems, while 40% report overseeing other technology.
Academic law librarians, often situated within law schools, oversee research platforms and databases (70.6%) and the library’s website (54.4%). Nearly half oversee the integrated library system or library management system.
For government law librarians, the survey indicates a responsibility for providing leadership and management for their organizations’ technology offerings. Specifically:
- Staff recommends technology and research products for purchase: 57.9% of government law libraries
- Staff is involved with negotiating library contracts: 81.6%
- Manage their organizations’ research databases: 91.9%
- Oversee knowledge management systems: 33.3%
- Supervise their institutions’ intranet or SharePoint sites: 8.8%
Most Popular Research Tools
The report also provides subscription data on the research products most utilized by law librarians.
For law firm and corporate law libraries, the most commonly used platform is Wolters Kluwer, reported by 92.3% of respondents. Other popular services include:
- Westlaw (or Westlaw Edge), 86.5%
- Bloomberg Law, 84.6%
- HeinOnline, 76.9%
- LexisNexis, (or Lexis Plus), 65.4%
- Other, 15.4%
- Fastcase, 11.5%
- Casetext, 7.7%
Regarding specialty research tools utilized by law firm and corporate legal department law librarians, the most popular platforms include:
- News aggregators, 87.5%
- Docket Navigator, 56.3%
- Lex Machina, 47.9%
- Capital IQ, 43.8%
- Monitor Suite, 39.6%
- Pitchbook, 39.6%
- Other, 20.8%
- MergerMarket, 18.8%
- Bureau van Djik (also known as Orbis), 16.7%
- Factset, 12.5%
- Trellis, 12.5%
- Gavelytics, 2.1%
For law librarians working in government settings, the electronic resources with the highest number of active subscriptions are:
- Westlaw, 97.3%
- LexisNexis, 89.2%
- HeinOnline, 62.2%
- Wolters Kluwer, 43.2%
- Fastcase, 27%
The survey did not gather data from academic law librarians regarding their most-used research tools.
Obtaining the Report
Further details about the AALL State of the Profession report can be found on the AALL’s website. An executive summary is available for complimentary download. The full report is available for purchase in print or digital formats, with pricing starting at $179 for AALL members and $279 for nonmembers.
This article was written for Human&Legal.
