Introduction
In 2023, law firms faced significant changes, including economic uncertainty, pandemic recovery, and a technological leap similar to the internet's introduction. This presents an opportunity for firms to lead change for their clients, emphasizing the crucial role of information professionals and library services.
Looking ahead to 2024, the focus should be on staffing and skills, generative AI and emerging technologies, and collection strategy. By prioritizing these areas, firms can leverage their libraries and adapt to the transformative impact of generative AI for future success.
Looking back
Since 2021, Harbor has been providing annual recommendations to help firms make the most of their information professionals. As we outline our priorities for 2024, we've noticed both similarities and differences from our previous suggestions.
- Effective management of collections remains crucial. While the focus has evolved since 2021, the principle remains the same: acquire the right content in the right format at the best price to support the firm’s practitioners and maximize return on investment.
- Optimizing library staffing for efficient service delivery continues to be a key recommendation. Having the right staff assigned to appropriate tasks is critical for providing client-centric services.
- Adapting to evolving technology presents a strategic opportunity for law firm libraries. With AI's impact on the industry, there is an increased potential to make a significant impact on the firm.
Three areas of focus for 2024
Staffing & skills
Law firm support staffing structures will always be scrutinized for cost and ROI. To address this challenge, it's essential for information professionals to add value in diverse areas, such as utilization and adoption efforts, competitive intelligence, data analytics, and technology initiatives. This value transforms staffing from mere overhead to leverageable skills meeting evolving firm demands.
In the AI age, the library's strategic opportunity is to control the value proposition and cultivate a responsive team that not only supports but also drives change in the firm. Two key shifts are required:
- Allowing the library to focus on strategic pursuits, often hindered by non-strategic tasks
- Evaluating and adjusting department skillsets
Leveraging third-party service providers for non-strategic tasks, like document retrieval and reactive research, while internal teams focus on strategic work, creates a competitive advantage. This approach expands capacity without increasing headcount, disaggregates commoditized tasks, and facilitates staff focus on acquiring and applying new skillsets to meet diverse organizational needs.
Training as a strategic initiative
One strategic initiative requiring attention and potential upskilling is training. There are three key areas to focus on:
- Guiding users in understanding nuances in generative AI searching, result evaluation, and appropriate uses
- Training key researchers to excel as prompt engineers
- Incorporating client restrictions on the use of specific research resources
Ensuring that legal research, particularly with newer associates, goes beyond a single search is substantial. The research process may evolve slightly, but its importance has increased. However, the time spent on creating and delivering training will significantly rise, demanding a new level of focus, expertise, and collaboration within the firm.
Transitioning seasoned researchers into prompt engineers requires a comprehensive training plan, complicated by the need to switch between traditional search and generative AI tools. Close collaboration between library personnel, other departments, and vendor partners is necessary to manage these nuances and develop responsive training programs.
As law firm clients push for technological advancements, potential restrictions on generative AI use must be addressed in the training plan. This includes prerequisites for specific resources, tracking mechanisms, and continuous updates based on new products and changing client requirements.
Next steps
Make sure your internal teams are prepared to support various strategic initiatives and review the alignment between library staffing and skills and your firm's strategic goals by:
- Assessing roles and responsibilities within the library
- Identifying new skills and providing professional development opportunities for staff
- Exploring how tasks can be delegated and the benefits of adding third-party support
- Expanding responsibilities to align with the firm's needs and create growth opportunities for staff
- Integrating library and information professionals into overall strategic planning efforts
- AI
- Law firm library
- Research
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