Category: Law

The phantom law librarian

*checks mirror quickly*
Yes, I’m definitely here. I exist, I have a reflection (and am therefore also not a vampire, which is reassuring), but it seems I am actually a phantom.
An invisible law librarian.
If you look for me, I am not there. Search my employers website – I don’t exist.
And I’m not alone.

Look on the websites of law firms…I know those other law librarians are out there: fee earning, creating bulletins, researching for clients…so where are they? They’re not on the online staff lists, there’s no images of law firm librarians looking dazzlingly smart and intelligent while leaning against the shelves of books that they’ve carefully sourced and selected for their Library (a favoured pose for lawyers in corporate photos: books = smart, apparently).
But we’re just as essential to the health of the firm as any other members of staff, who get a shiny profile and “look how fab and experienced our staff are” blurb on the website.

So…why are we hidden away by our employers? Do they think that by admitting that they have employed experienced professionals to deal with specialised information, that they’re weaker than their competitors in some way? Surely it’s a great selling point to clients, to be able to say that they have people dedicated purely to finding the answers needed for all the questions that could arise?

Or do we suffer from the same problem as all other librarians: once we’ve handed over the work that we’ve done, it’s immediately forgotten that it was us that did it? That case/report/book/database just magically appeared when it was needed….

The phantom law librarians, pale ghosts in the law firm machine?

No discrimination in Boston

It doesn’t matter whether you’re black, white or even just kinda patchy colours all over…in Boston, you’re able to serve as a juror. Yes, species is no barrier to being involved in turning those big, heavy wheels of justice!

It makes the Scottish Government’s recent act of removing the age barrier for jury duty look positively old-fashioned: bring on the time when animals are serving! I can’t wait to see what “reasonable adaptations” would be needed to allow large farm animals in the jurors box. Although I suppose at least some animals, like horses, would already be used to being in a box…




Ta to Greville Tombs for sending me this story.

Well, it depends…

These are just a few simple words, yet they’re almost guaranteed to turn a bright-eyed, hopeful lawyer into a darkly-muttering, frustrated one. Y’see, sometimes there ain’t a simple answer to what seems like a straightforward question because it all….depends.

It depends, dear enquirer, because what may seem reasonable to one party, might not be so reasonable to the other party. And no, I can’t give you any more information on the probable response by a judge or sheriff to your case because your case is entirely individual; the facts and circumstances in it are unique, and will have to be considered on their own merits. If you like, I could dig out a case from the 1800s that may relate to sheep, or suchlike, but I can tell you now, it’s not going to help you one little bit.
How nice a mood I am at the time in can be estimated by how sympathetic I sound when I deliver this information….