The current BIALL President, Julie Christmas, talks to LIM Co-Editors Mike and Jas Breslin about how she became a legal information manager, how she's trying to upgrade the technology to allow the organisation to function smoothly, and why she believes that the job title ‘law librarian’ should – just perhaps – be consigned to history.

The President of the Australian Law Librarians’ Association talks to LIM about her varied career, the problems facing the organisation, and why she believes we're living in a time where those working in the profession can really make a difference.

When sport gets complicated, which it tends to do these days, it's time to call on the specialists, such as sports law lawyers. But just what is sports law, what are the rules of the game, what sort of cases crop up, and what do the lawyers need in terms of resources. Lereesa Easterbrook and Said Sufi of Bird & Bird give us a fascinating – and in this Olympic year timely – insight into this burgeoning legal field.

For the vast majority of us salary is one of the key reasons we work. With bills to pay and mouths to feed we want to know we are being fairly compensated for the jobs we do. One way to check this is to use the BIALL Annual Salary Survey which considers not only salaries but also working conditions and benefits, offering a comparison to similar organisations and roles. In this article Julie Christmas, Claire Mazer and the team from CB Resourcing highlight some of the findings from the 2023 survey and consider the reasons behind these.

In the following article Dunstan Speight offers a few initial thoughts on the implications for law libraries of the October 2023 cyber-attack on the British Library. While the remarks apply particularly to larger institutional libraries (such as those of professional bodies like the Inns of Court) there are lessons to be learnt for all types of library and information service.

This article by Emily Allbon introduces readers to the discipline of legal design, offering an insight into its application, its methodology, and the contexts in which it appears. There is coverage of why legal design is so pivotal for ensuring access to the law and an exploration of where it is being used: in legal practice, in academia, in public legal education and in the courts. There is also a close look at one element; that of visual contracts, and some consideration of where the legal information profession might position itself.

Last year Jake Hearn, Vice Chair of the LIM editorial board, created an elective module on the core components of and types of roles within the legal information profession, which was offered to postgraduate students at City, University of London, with the module being hosted at City, University of London and The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. Here Jake gives the reasons for creating the module and tells us how it all came together and how it has progressed since then.

With the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) having been introduced in 2021 the training of solicitors has changed. But what impact will its legal research assessment have on their ability to do this sort of work? Here Greg Bennett, who works at BPP in London – where in addition to being a law librarian he is also studying the LPC – gives an overview of the situation and outlines his own concerns.

In this article Anne O'Connor and Joanna Morris of Thomson Reuters set the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (REUL Act 2023) within its broader historical context, summarise provisions likely to be of interest to the legal information community, and explain how and why the REUL Act 2023 has given rise to legal uncertainty.

In this article Alan Wheeler advocates for academic librarians to employ the principles of autoethnography and storytelling within their practice, as a tactic for student engagement. As a librarian and researcher operating within Higher Education (HE), Alan has always illustrated his practice with personal accounts of how to operate effectively as a student. Here, he proposes that librarians in academia embrace the autoethnographic principles of vulnerability, uncertainty and subjectivity to explore their position within HE, but also as a teaching tool.

They say that everyone has a book in them. But how do lawyers and other legal professionals go about getting published? How does the publishing process work and what are the benefits of being published? This article by Sian O'Neill of Globe Law and Business outlines the benefits of being published and how the process works, including generating new ideas, approaching a publisher and the publishing proposal, as well as the production process and what authors can expect in terms of marketing.

‘Going Green: The BIALL Sustainability Working Group’ was a parallel session presented by Christine Baird during the BIALL Annual Conference ‘Gaining the edge: investing in our skillset’, held in Belfast in June 2023. The session aimed to provide an introduction to the newly formed BIALL Sustainability Working Group. The session, and this subsequent article, outlines the group's aims, projects and structure, as well as the wider contexts which motivated the group's establishment. It discusses the ways in which information professionals can develop more sustainable working practices, both individually and by leveraging the power of our professional networks. This paper explores the opportunities for legal librarians to engage in community activism, and the importance of both this concept and of ‘cathedral thinking’ in responding to the climate crisis.

In this article Jas Breslin, Head of Research and Information Services at Charles Russell Speechlys, gives a brief overview of the type of work performed by a corporate lawyer, and some of the key resources used to support their work.

While every law librarian should be able to find a case, tracking one from claim form to judgment is another thing entirely. Here Anneli Sarkanen outlines why and when this might need to be done, the various sources that are available and the methods that are used

In an era where efficient information management is crucial, KnowAll Matrix stands out as a transformative tool for legal informational professionals. It was developed by an experienced UK legal library consultant, Penny Bailey, and here Bailey Solutions explains how this innovative platform goes beyond standard library management systems to offer a future-proof solution, revolutionising access to legal knowledge. Utilised by large law firms, barristers' chambers, government libraries, European agencies, a European parliament, and other organisations, KnowAll Matrix supports information staff to proficiently manage all traditional library functions, including cataloguing, subject indexing, classification, circulation, loans, acquisitions, and serials management. Furthermore, it offers essential features for modern electronic resources management. Its user-friendly interface ensures seamless discovery of both print and digital resources in a single search, prioritising user convenience. Over two decades, as the legal and technological landscapes have evolved, so too has the product, with innovative features like multi-hierarchical taxonomies, practice group resources, single sign-on, and contract renewals. This article delves into these new features and their utilisation by clients to make the library and information centre a primary resource for legal professionals seeking information.

This systematic literature review paper, written by Channarong Intahchomphoo, Jason Millar, Odd Erik Gundersen, Christian Tschirhart, Kris Meawasige and Hojjat Salemi, examines academic research publications to learn about the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics on human labour. Papers were collected from three academic databases: Scopus, Web of Science and ABI/INFORM Collection. From 710 papers, 159 papers were included. The article finds that the effects of AI and robotics on human labour can be categorised as: (i) positive effects, (ii) negative effects, and (iii) neutral or unsure effects. The positive effects have five reasons regarding AI and robotics’ potential to: do dangerous work, do tedious work with high efficiency and accuracy, do some aspects of computing work, do work that human labour does not want to do and be used to deal with the labour shortage, and help to reduce business production and maintenance costs. The negative effects are based on two reasons, that AI and robotics will take over human labour in part or entirely, thereby creating unemployment crises, and will not only replace manually repetitive jobs from human labour but also cognitive jobs, causing human labour to fear that their jobs will be replaced by AI and robotics. The neutral and unsure effects are based on various unique arguments. The findings of this review are used to suggest future research for academic communities and practical recommendations to legal professionals and policy makers.