On Wed, 10 Nov 1993, Albert Brecht wrote:
. . .
>
> One other matter I will just share with you. I'd have to go look this
> up in the CAlif. Lawyer, so I'll do it off the top of my head. A survey
> a couple of years ago of Cal lawyers (rather urban state) showed, I
> believe it was, 50% of lawyers practicing in firms with fewer than 20
> attys. From what I know of numbers in firms and hiring a law librarian,
> I think it is pretty safe to say that firms with less than 20 attys do
> not hire a law librarian. I take this to mean that about 50% of CAl
> attorneys do not frequently encounter a law librarian, thus not use one
> is assisting with their research. I wonder how important this 50% can
> think law librarians are? Maybe I'm making too much of this 50% but the
> knowledge of this has never been comforting to me.
>
. . .
"Although there has been a continuing decline in the proportion
of lawyers in sole and small-firm practice, in 1988 more than half of the
nation's lawyers remained in sole-to-ten-lawyer units in private
practice. Moreover, following a decline during the 1960s in the totla
number of sole practitioners (from 131,840 to 124,800), the record growth
of the profession during the 1970s and 1980s included a significant
increase in the number of sole practitioners (from 124,800 to 240,141)."
American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to
the Bar, Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap,
LEGAL EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT -- AN EDUCATIONAL CONTINUUM
(Student Ed. [1993?]) at 28 (citing American Bar Fountation 1988
Supplement to the Lawyer Statistical Report).
(This is the "MacCrate Report" -- the edition I have is the
"student edition" printed and distributed courtesy of West Publishing.
Part One, "The Profession for Which Lawyers Must Prepare," is filled with
statistics, drawn from various sources, about the legal profession.
Whatever one's opinions of the MacCrate Report's recommendations, I think
its description of trends in the legal profession is well worth looking at
-- lots of statistics and footnotes.)
Albert is correct is saying that small firms do not generally have
their own librarians, but I would not be so quick to assume that those
practitioners do not regularly come in contact with law librarians. They
may regularly go to public or subscription law libraries to do their
research. I know that there are many local attorneys who use our library
(which is open to the public) for almost all their research. Perhaps they
have the state code and maybe the state digest and a run of recent
reporters in their offices (and now some use a CD ROM product or BBS with
state law sources), but they come here or go to the county law library for
looseleaf services, hornbooks, regional reporters, etc. Some of these
attorneys think that law librarians are great -- or at least they say so
from time to time when they are asking us to help them figure something
out.
I expect that the lawyers with the least exposure to law
librarians are those in medium-sized firms -- that is, firms that are big
enough to have a pretty decent collection but not big enough to hire a
librarian. When I was in law school I was a summer associate at such a
firm. At the time it had 30-40 attorneys. The library included state
materials, a few looseleaf services, CJS, ALR, USCA, USCS, Pacific
Reporter, F. Supp., F.2d. I only left the firm to use a law library once
-- I believe I went to the county law library to use Nichols on Eminent
Domain.
In retrospect, I realize I could have used a librarian to help me
use the sources the library had. My last assignment involved securities,
but I hadn't taken Securities Regulation, I knew little about the subject,
and the partner who gave me the assignment didn't explain much. I
remember unhappily -- and unsuccessfully -- floundering through a
looseleaf or two. My summer ended with me hanging my head and telling the
partner I'd been unable to complete the assignment. Maybe I could have
ended on a better note if someone had told me how to research the question
-- like, say, a law librarian.
=====Mary Whisner, Head of Reference======================
=====Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington======
=====whisner@u.washington.edu=============================
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