Dumpling in a Hanky

Let me begin by confessing: I am not a law firm lucky charm. I’ve worked for 2 different firms over a period of 18 months, both of which went into administration or merged with another firm, which left me unemployed twice in a short period of time. Unfortunately, my story isn’t unusual: changes in the legal market mean that these sort of events will happen more and more frequently, especially in the mid-sized law firms. My Nostradamus moment now is to predict that most mid-sized firms won’t exist within 5 years, as they get eaten up by the bigger firms, or split down into smaller, niche firms. So if you’re working in a small or mid-sized firm: you’re in a very risky position right now. So what can you do to both plan for the potential experience of having a job that disappears, and to get through it successfully? I’m going to give you some tips on what to do, when, and how to get through this. And I’ll be honest: a lot of this is unpleasant, but you can get through to the other sid...

There was a motion proposed last week by the Magistrate's Association in England and Wales, to end the swearing of oaths in court on the bible and other holy books. Although the motion was defeated , there was a sentence that caught my eye: Had the motion been passed, it would probably have needed the approval of parliament to bring the change about. The previous version of the story mentioned it in this way: The practice is so old that it is not clear whether it is simply custom or if Parliament would have to change it. And Oaths sworn on the Bible are old enough for the Magistrates' Association to be unsure whether they are mere custom and practice or whether they were laid down by law. So, whatever the decision in Cardiff, it might need the approval of Parliament to bring the change about.  I found this quite unusual: changes to the law were being proposed, but the people proposing the changes didn't actually know how they would go about changing it! ...

So, between Thursday 13th June and Saturday 15th June, I attended the annual BIALL conference in Glasgow, thanks to the help of a generous bursary from BIALL. Now, due to funding restrictions with my previous employer, I'd not been able to attend this event since 2008 . As this is the main professional event for the UK legal information sector, I always felt frustrated that I was missing out on being somewhere where important developments were being discussed, and that I wasn't getting to make the connections with people that I should. However, since 2008, lots of things have changed, especially in the way people who are effectively strangers to each other can communicate. Basically: Twitter happened. Now, through Twitter, I feel like I have an excellent network of contacts both within my sector and outside it, and as I restrict the amount of people I follow/allow to follow me, I feel I really know them quite well. So when I need help with anything, I can ask my contacts...

Certain old law books are very, very expensive (like this one ). Certain new law books are also very, very expensive. This book has slipped from its original publication date by about 3 years so far, so there's no guarantee that it will actually be coming out in November this year, as currently promised. But just look at that price. £785. Yes: that's not a typo. It actually costs £785 for a single volume of a single book. It has 568 pages.  That's £1.38 per page . Law book prices are just insane sometimes.  

Unfortunately, lawyers get it too...and one of the best (for best, read "irritating and patronising") ones is the Legally Blonde female lawyer. Y'know - that attractive yet dumb blonde girl who floats through life, until an major event makes her re-evaluate everything, and then she works her socks off to show everyone how smart she really is? Seems like the BBC have been watching a few too many repeats of that film recently, judging from their reporting of this story  (although Legally Blonde isn't specifically mentioned in the report). Look: she's blonde! Look: she's pretty! Look: she used to work in a beauty-based job! That means she must be stupid! Look: she went to court to battle on her Mum's behalf! Isn't that an unexpected event! Look: she's studied to become a lawyer! And excelled at her studies! Look: she's actually really, really smart! Who could have imagined? Dear god - all it needs is her bust size, and a hint that she...

It’s all change at the moment in Englandshire law firms, and what happens in England no longer stays in England . Alternative Business Structures (ABS) are all the rage, and after a gradual run up period where firms could register interest in the conversion to ABS status (with mainly personal injury firms (PI) and smaller firms doing so, some large businesses such as BT and the Co-operative group being an exception), now they’re actually real – the first three groups to be approved as ABS’ were announced on the 28th March 2012 . Mid tier and larger firms in England seems to be adopting a “wait and see approach”, watching how the smaller, more adaptable firms (and also therefore possibly those who are more hungry for a cash-injection) fare before committing themselves to any tie-ups with investors. The existing large bodies like the Co-operative Group are big enough, and well funded enough to push on and expand their existing legal services in their own direction. The react...

I'm the first to admit, I love social media stuff. I've been on Twitter for almost 5 years, I (slightly grudgingly) eventually joined Facebook around the same time, and have played with all sorts of thing in between, from Formspring to Pinterest. However - my use of all those sites is almost exclusively personal (apart from Twitter, which is actually heavily weighted towards work-relevant networks). There's not actually much need that I can see to do anything involving social media in its current form for my own library service. I do enjoy reading about how academic and public libraries are furthering the use of their resources and exploring how to best use sites, using Facebook to inform users about events and service specifics, Twitter to respond to individuals, and Pinterest to collate interesting visual materials...but it just doesn't work in my situation. As a corporate librarian, I'm in a very different position from a public or academic librarians, in rel...

If you're an American prisoner unhappy with your sentence, you might want to start brushing up on your IT skills. This story of an inmate who objected that giving limited Westlaw access wasn't the same as providing a legal library turned up in my RSS feeds via  Library Stuff . I can understand his problems with Westlaw, although it's actually one of the less painful legal databases to use (Lexis - why? WHY?!?!). As the story says though, he's not likely to win his case, so the books will be going, and occasional Westlaw access will be staying. Which ain't fun if you're not confident on a computer, and have restricted access. Do we have a similar sort of requirement for prisoners to have access to law libraries and legal materials? Do UK prisoners have any sort of ability to do legal research on their own behalf?

Last night, through nefarious means*, I was invited to the launch of a series of short films on the Session Cases , by the Scottish Council of Law Reporting. The Session Cases are the most authoritative series of law reports in Scotland, and they are created and published by SCLR . The videos are 5-6 minute segments, available on a dedicated YouTube channel, which outline the history and effects of the Session Cases on Scots law, how the Session Cases developed, how they are put together and by who, and how they are used in court. The video clips themselves are well produced, high quality films, with interviews and commentary from everyone who uses the Session Cases, from the judges and Advocates who write, review, edit and use them in court, to the Advocates Library staff who maintain the collections of Session Cases for the Advocates, and the Session Papers that support them. Definitely a useful resource for law students, law tutors, those who have to source Sess...

"Salmon principles" are actually the six cardinal principles used to protect persons whose reputations might be affected by a tribunal of inquiry. They do not, in fact, refer to a certain type of fish having a strong moral fibre.

Bareboat charter and bottomry bonds are both terms relating to ships, not dodgy “adult” films.

*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. ...

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. Image source

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....

Feel like going fishing? Well, if you want to go and fish in the River Esk, which is mainly in Scotland, you'll have to apply for a fishing licence from the Environment Agency in England. Bit confusing, so there's a test case coming up on the 10th September...

Ah, FindLaw UK , a shiny new website, for general public access to law, and solicitors. Sounds like a good thing, and in principle, it is. But I have to go back to a traditional moan: Scots law differs in many areas from English/Welsh law. The Findlaw UK website almost exclusively refers to E/W law, but doesn't actually state this. There are a few references to where there are differences, but these can be deep in the articles e.g the core section on divorce procedure refers entirely to E/W law, with only a related article alongside outlining that there are different procedures in different jurisdictions. The Personal Injury section refers you to the website of Community Legal Advice , which offers "free, confidential and independent legal advice for resident of England and Wales" . Buying and Selling Property is purely about E/W law, I can't find even a hint of the Scottish differences. Bankruptcy? Alcohol and Crime? Dispute Resolution Law? Criminal Law...

Looks like the UK Supreme Court's having a wee holiday from posting judgments (or as they call them, Decided Cases) on its website . The last case listed is [2010] UKSC 10, from the beginning of March. BAILLI however has the text of all judgments up to [2010] UKSC 32, this July. What's going on? Why are cases not being posted to the UKSC website? I can't find if there's an announcement about the cases being posted to BAILLI instead, as the news section only goes back to mid-June 2010, and the archive section only lists information from 2009. What's happened to the news that happened between 2009 and June 2010? But hey, at least they managed to publish their annual report and accounts yesterday. Wonder how much of it went into web design...? From the annual report: " Our website The Court is a modern institution on an international stage. Our website www.supremecourt.gov.uk continues to be a success with a wide audience and contains a considerable amount of i...

Thanks to the lovely @technollama, I'm pretending to be professional, and organising an event for the Scottish Law Librarians Group. The Mighty Llama himself will be presenting on this topic: Digital Copyright: The Next Generation During the first decade of the century copyright law has been one of the most important legal issues when it comes to the Internet. Recent developments may give copyright law a different face for the next decade. From the passing of the Digital Economy Act, to the rise of user-generated content and open licensing schemes such as open source and Creative Commons, the future of copyright is shaping up to present an interesting juxtaposition between two very different ideas about content management. Date: Thursday 1st July 2010 Venue: Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue , 16 St. Mary Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1SU Time: 5.30pm Members should have received their email invite by now, but if not, and you're a member, email me on the address in the contact d...

Iain Nisbet of the Govan Law Centre (and excellent, and entertaining Absolvitor blog) has referred to a (somewhat snarky) blog post I did back in October about the UK Supreme Court website in the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland (JLSS – not to be confused with a terrible manufactured boy band) While it’s great to see from Iain's review that things on the site have improved (and I’m blushing at the thought of having any sort of influence other than what craft class to run in the evenings), it did remind me to double check an issue with the cases that was still outstanding in November 2009, when I looked at the site again. Case [2009] UKSC 1 E, R (on the application of) v Governing Body of JFS & Anor (Rev 3) doesn’t actually exist on the Supreme Court site. You can find it via BAILLI , which shows the 3 cases the court decided in October. Searching for “[2009] UKSC 1” on the Decided Cases area doesn’t bring it up, nor does using the name. The only way to find it is a...

Yes, another trip to New Zealand has meant yet more frantic catching up, and having had minimal internet access while upside down means I have no idea what’s gone on legal-wise while I was away. Although, as you can see, it was a terrible hardship being there while it snowed (AGAIN) here.... I must dig around post-haste, to see if any of my normal activities have been made illegal while I was away, cos, y’know, apparently, ignorance of the law is no defence. Or something…*sighing, while checking that papercrafting and internet pottering haven’t been outlawed*