In these times, when interviewing with medium or large sized law, it is pertinent and actually necessary to make the case that you view the library as part of a firm’s revenue stream. The recruiting department does it by recruiting new time keepers – laterals bringing in books of business. The marketing/sales departments, with their prospecting initiatives, provide the firm new business opportunities as well. Even IT, a known but necessary cost center (keep the cogs moving), farms out in-house expert technicians who assist firm clients with extranets and in-house technical up grades; all at a billed hourly rate. In most law firms, the library is a part of the Competitive Intelligence department and thus participates with the strategic planning of the firm’s vision and goals. This supportive visibility has in many instances assisted with maintaining library staffing levels and justified ancillary business resource costs.
However, these are stressful times and everyone in a law firm is pushed to exceed what they once produced, with less; struggling until they grow into the realities of today’s expectations. Many C levels now view the library as not just an administrative department providing professional services, but as a department staffed with professional fee earners and thus a potential source of revenue. Collection strategy, product review, news alerts, training et al, are taking second place to client billable hours.
Lyn Warmath and Monice Kaczorowski have written an excellent article titled “Cost Recovery: A Team Effort,” that not only discusses billable hours for librarian’s research time, but cost recovery for online legal research services; both key topics of discussion for high level administrators. Regardless of whether a firm already has cost recovery in place, the article makes some excellent points that if mentioned in an interview, will be noted. Remember my recent post regarding interviewing for research positions and Ali Baba’s secret password…“revenue stream.”
Walking into a job interview with the understanding that though it may be your time, it is also their billable time, will establish your fiduciary talents, as well as your understanding of the firm’s bottom line.
A native Texan, Linda Will received both her B.A. and MLS from the University of Texas at Austin. A Law Librarian for over 25 years, Linda has worked at Vinson & Elkins (Houston), Holland and Knight (Tampa), Greenberg & Traurig (Miami), Dorsey &Whitney (Minneapolis), and since 2008 has run WILL RESOURCES, a Law Firm and Legal Resources consulting company.
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