Technology is transforming the way legal work is being delivered. It is influencing what law firms, clients and legal departments are expecting of their employees and what employees are expecting of their employers. It is reshaping legal education and careers; lawyers are becoming legal knowledge engineers, information professionals and knowledge managers are working closer than ever with IT teams. In this article, Ann Hemming and James Wilkinson will be considering lawyers’ training and BIALL members’ role in the landscape being reshaped by legal technology.

This article by Jas Breslin was, again, based on a presentation given at the BIALL Conference in Belfast in June 2012. It provides a background to the implementation of Research@mofo, a centralised enquiry service run by the library team for the benefit of the firm and its clients.

A job with a global law firm can involve meeting or working alongside colleagues from many different countries. In order to communicate effectively, we need to be aware of the different norms within which we work. Sara Batts, Jas Breslin and Susanna Winter, who together have many years’ experience working internationally, discuss three key areas which can help enhance our interactions with our counterparts overseas.

Melinda Renner, from the University of New Brunswick, writes about her experiences as a New England Law Library Consortium International Fellow who was seconded to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London. She describes the visits she made and her impressions of how academic librarianship in Britain and Canda appear to share many of the same issues and problems.

This was the first time that I had attended EBIC, so I didn't quite know what to expect. When I received the preliminary information on the conference I put it on one side wondering whether it warranted the expenditure required, but when I had a chance to look at it properly I really liked what I saw and realised that it would be very pertinent to my job as it is now. The conference appeared to be a nice balance between knowledge and information strategies, technology and information delivery and leadership and management – all areas in which I am very interested. Also, the structure appealed to me – a combination of panel, plenary and breakout sessions.

Mark Pexton, of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, provides a report on the findings of a survey into the use of Collection Development Policies (CDPs) and related collection development issues in law firm libraries. The survey was conducted during September 2014 and during the course of this article he provides an analysis of the benefits and difficulties of creating and implementing a CDP.

Lesley Young analyses how the acquisitions process has altered in an academic law library with a huge international collection of both hard copy and electronic resources, following the increasing introduction and use of electronic sources of legal information.

Legal information management is crucial for Chinese Lawyers who practice law in non-litigation and litigation legal areas. Li Zheng, Attorney at Law from PRC, provides a brief overview of the legal procedure, at a practical level, from the point of view of a Chinese lawyer.

This article by John Furlong is an updated and revised version of an article originally authored by John Furlong and Susan Doe and published in Legal Information Management 2006, 6(2) Summer 2006 and covers in some detail the basic sources for researching European Union law. It also gives some background on the growth of the European Union and its law making.

This piece, by Celine Kelly, is a report on a paper that was presented at the JSI 2013 in Melbourne and explores the key points made by Andrew Godwin on the globalisation and liberalisation of legal services in the Australasia region. The talk included a discussion on the pros and cons of globalisation and case studies of legal services in South Korea, Singapore, Japan, China, India and Australia.

Greg Rose outlines the main publishers of construction contracts used under English law. He then looks at sources for obtaining the contracts, both hard copy and electronic versions, and advises us on how to keep them up-to-date.

Hester Swift, Foreign and International Law Librarian, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, and Peter Clinch, Senior Subject Librarian for Law, Cardiff University delivered this paper at the recent BIALL Annual Conference.

Sweet & Maxwell's acquisition of Lawtel has certainly caused librarians some concerns. The legal sector has rarely seen so many mergers and takeovers, having reached almost the point of a true anti-trust duopoly operating. Concerns have been expressed about the concentration of market power between Sweet & Maxwell and Butterworths. This article examines some of the competition law issues which arise.

Roddy Waldhelm, Head of the Solicitor's Legal Information Centre, describes the work of Government lawyers in Scotland and how their information needs are met by his team, which provides a dedicated in-house legal library and research service.

Lexis and Westlaw are the biggest names in subscription legal database provision, and have been settled here in the UK long enough to be the subject of a little comparative critical examination. I hope to provide this in what follows, with the caveat that my experience is of academic subscriptions, which may vary in content from their commercial counterparts. I do have the advantage of access to the respective American academic versions, so that some comparisons can also be made in that direction.

This article, written by Jake Hearn, seeks to define and reevaluate artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of the corporate legal world. The article explores some of the opportunities on offer to information professionals to ensure that the profession continues to grow within the economic, cultural and professional context it is situated.

This article by Gareth Ryan, Law and Official Publications Librarian, describes the history of the library, outlines the courses offered by the law school and details the collections and services offered by the law library.

This article by Gill Black of Biggart Baillie LLP, the current Convenor of the Group, describes its membership and activities.