Outsourcing Law Firm Libraries to Commercial Law Library and Legal Research Services. The UK Experience

摘要

The recent global and Euro zone financial crises and the emergence of competition from alternative providers of legal services have provided impetus to law firms globally to adopt new low cost models of legal service delivery in order to compete for commercial legal work. Outsourcing has played an important part in these new lower-cost models of service delivery. Since 2009, ten large and leading UK law firms have completely outsourced their law libraries to one of two commercial providers of law library and legal research services. Little is known about the providers and users of these services or how the services work in practice because of concerns of commercial confidentiality. Opinion is divided on whether library outsourcing is a temporary response to the need to reduce costs in a financial downturn or an inevitable, irreversible consequence of the changing information needs of lawyers. Opinion is also passionately divided between outsourcers and law librarians in the UK on the quality and benefits of the legal research services they each provide to the legal profession. This paper identifies the providers and users of outsourced law library services in the UK and describes the way law library outsourcing was implemented. The reasons for legal research outsourcing in the UK and the validity of the claims made of it by advocates and critics will be discussed in the light of information gathered from personal interviews with the providers and users of these outsourced services during a visit to the UK in July 2012. The way in which outsourced law library and legal research services are delivered to law firms is outlined revealing more complexity than was previously understood. The level of law firm satisfaction with the outsourced services will be revealed for the first time. The future prospects for law firm library outsourcing are considered by way of conclusion. The leading provider of outsourced law library and legal research services in the UK, Integreon, entered the Australian market in 2011 and opened an Australian headquarters in Sydney in August 2013. A number of other global legal process outsourcing companies that provide legal research services to law firms overseas have also recently entered the Australian market. It is possible that one or all of these service providers may offer law library and legal research services to Australian law firms making this research of relevance to Australian lawyers and law librarians.