Here is the final issue of Legal Information Management (LIM) for the 2022 year. As I mentioned in my previous editorial, this is my last issue of the journal; Jas and Mike Breslin will be taking on editorial responsibility for LIM from the Spring 2023 issue onwards. They already have lots of great ideas for content and the journal will be in excellent hands for the future.
BIALL ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2022: A SELECTION OF PAPERS
For the most part, this winter issue will focus on a selection of papers that were delivered at the very successful in-person BIALL Annual Conference that took place in July 2022. The journal has already published two of the presentations given at that event, namely the 8th Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture which was delivered by Jules Winterton entitled ‘BIALL: Judgment Day and Beyond’ (included in issue 22(2)) and Paul Magrath's piece entitled ‘The Genie and the Lamp: How Can Artificial Intelligence Help Us Find New Case Law?’ (published in issue 22(3)).
What follows in the winter LIM, are six articles starting with Stephen Gregory, who works for the Welsh Government, and who writes on the subject: ‘Legal Consequentials: an Information Seeking Task’. In his article he draws on his experience of working with government lawyers and explores how government legal information professionals can assist in identifying legislation candidates for consequential amendment.
Caroline Stafford writes on the ‘Impact of COVID-19 on the Legal Information Profession within Law Firms’ while Charlie Brampton's article is on a very different topic entitled, ‘Pause for Thought: Designing Video Content that Doesn't Overwhelm Learners’. Matthew Leopold, of LexisNexis, discusses the ‘Rise of the Legal Consultant’ and concludes that while the platform model is well positioned as a disrupter, the traditional law firm model is not going away anytime soon, with talent retention likely to become the biggest challenge for all legal firms over the next few years. Greg Bennett, of BPP in London, writes on ‘Gaining an Insight into the User Experience by Becoming a User’. Finally, Jas Breslin provides a summary of a panel discussion held at the BIALL Conference focussing on the changes in legal research across the globe over the last decade. Entitled ‘Thoughts on the Ever-changing Landscape of International Legal Research’, the discussion saw four panellists from a variety of working environments explain what international legal research meant to them, and what significant transformations they had witnessed in recent times.
CURRENT INTERESTS AND CURRENT AWARENESS
Under the ‘Current interests’ section, my Cambridge colleague Kate Faulkner and Wendy Lynwood from the London School of Economics ask a very relevant question ‘Law Librarians as Copyright Specialists: the Perfect Match?’ The regular current awareness feature once again completes this issue.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Before departing, I must mention my sincere gratitude to all the many authors who have contributed to the journal during my tenure as editor. A journal is all about the quality and relevance of the content. So many people in our industry, whether concerned with legal information, law libraries, knowledge management, academia, publishing or the legal world, have risen to the challenge of writing and making excellent contributions to LIM over the last eleven years. Indeed, I was surprised to find that during my time ‘in post’, which commenced around the middle of 2011, there had been some 430 articles published in the journal. It would be invidious to mention individual articles and authors by name as there have been so many. However, in terms of the content, I have always enjoyed publishing the Willi Steiner Memorial Lectures. That event, which takes place at BIALL's annual conference, has turned into a fine lecture series and it is important that the presentations are published in BIALL's own journal. In that regard, I was especially proud to publish in 2019 (issue 19(4)) Baroness Hale's lecture entitled ‘The Changing Legal Landscape’ which also coincided with BIALL's 50th anniversary. It was also a great pleasure to mark BIALL's half century with a special issue of LIM (volume 19(2)) and publish an article noting the 50th year of this journal (in volume 20(1)).
Perhaps my most surprising theme over the years was ‘Sports Law’ in 2012 (volume 12(2)). It was at the time of the London Olympics and, having suggested the theme, I then found myself struggling to find willing contributors. In the end, some excellent content was forthcoming and one particularly enjoyable and, for LIM, unusual article entitled ‘Athletics in Ancient Law’ was written by my colleague and friend, David Ibbetson, Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge. In fact it was David who, when I said I have been offered the LIM editorial position, responded enthusiastically and without hesitation, ‘Well, I hope you accepted?’ And, of course, I had!
I am indebted to the five Chairs of the LIM Editorial Board for their support and advice since I took over the role from my predecessor Christine Miskin in 2011. Sarah Froggatt, Dunstan Speight, Loyita Worley, Sinéad Curtin and, most recently, Helen Garner have been excellent and so helpful. I also wish to thank everyone who has served on the Editorial Board for their many contributions. Our twice-yearly board meetings have been a great source of encouragement and I have been thankful for the many suggestions about themes, content and possible authors. The team of proof-readers deserve special mention as that part of the editorial process is very time-consuming; their work has been greatly appreciated. I am also grateful to several guest editors, book and product reviewers and to our colleagues who provide the current awareness section for each issue; and, in that regard, particular thanks go to Katherine Read for the regular and timely submission of that content.
Figure 1 The departing LIM editor, David Wills.
I am also very grateful to our colleagues at our publishing house, Cambridge University Press (CUP), in particular Craig Baxter, Production Editor, and before him Susan Perkins. I have always appreciated their patience as I revised the various sets of proofs for each issue. Rebecca O'Rourke, Hannah Patrick and Jamie Davidson have been extremely supportive in their roles as CUP journal editors. Finally, Jennifer Malat has provided helpful assistance with regard to the marketing of the journal.
My final thanks of this last editorial piece must go to you, as readers, and to BIALL (the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians) and to all those who play an invaluable part in its work. I will always be immensely grateful to have been given the opportunity to be the editor of BIALL's very own journal, Legal information Management.
Farewell, from me, to LIM. Over to Jas and Mike…
