Our morning speakers were Kevin O’Keefe, CEO of LexBlog, Inc. and Jason Preston, from Parnassus Group. Kevin talked to us about the history of social media, the evolution of social media applications and their current uses in the legal industry. Jason gave a presentation on social media and how we could use it in our organizations. Our first afternoon session featured a presentation by Elaine Jennerich from the University of Washington Libraries on the importance of recognition in the workplace. Finally, the day ended with a smashing session by Renee Smith Nyberg from New Lens Consulting, where we participated in an interactive activity involving dinner plates and a discussion of change in the workplace.

Lunch was a delicious assortment of sandwiches and salads catered by Herban Feast.

LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters provided generous sponsorships of $1500 each which helped the committee buy supplies for the interactive exercise with Renee Smith Nyberg and provide a $200 honorarium for each speaker.

We sent a SurveyMonkey survey out to attendees, and we received a mostly positive response. Most respondents enjoyed the day; some liked one half of the day better than the other.

The committee had a lot of fun putting this workshop together. Thanks to Lori Fossum, Holly Gale, Erin Hoffrance and Kristine Lloyd for making the day a great success. Thanks also to Tim Sheehy and the staff at the Federal Courthouse for providing the great location and for being fantastic hosts.

Respectfully submitted,

Jennifer Hill

LLOPS Professional Development Committee Chair, 2009-10

Registration fees received………………….$2,665

Expenses (food, supplies, honoraria)…………($2,657)

Profit………………………………………..$8

Sponsorhips…………………………………$3,000

Walking through Nordstrom is a heavenly experience. Gliding from architecturally aligned rack to rack, you feel as though you are in a museum. There are items that you should not touch. Items that famous people wear. You may be accosted by security for touching these items without permission if you are not carrying a Birkin bag. Sweaters are folded as soon as they’re touched and hangars are realigned after being pulled out, examined and rehung asymmetrically. A tour through Macy’s (at least some of the stores) is like walking down an alleyway. Clothes often litter the floor, hangars jut out like elbows, the mannequins look like they’ve had a rough night, and everything is 25% off. Macy’s carries many of the same designers as Nordstrom, that is, if you can find them.

What exactly am I getting at here? Well, such is the difference between two court docket alert services: Westlaw’s CourtWire and Courthouse News Service. CourtWire is, as my grandma would say, real purdy, but it does a lot of the same things that Courthouse News does, which is basically to give you access to complaints before anyone else can, by what I imagine are people who wait like the post-Thanksgiving sales shoppers to get into the courts first thing in the morning.

Having just seen a demo of CourtWire, there are definitely bells and whistles that make the product attractive, the most impressive being that you can search across all available jurisdictions at once, that is, if they are included in your plan. CourtWire covers 136 courts, and they do visit some of the busier courts more than once a day. I would not venture to guess how many Courthouse News covers, clearly more than 136, but coverage for some courts is weekly, rather than daily. Courthouse News recently started offering bankruptcy court coverage in some jurisdictions, plus some Canadian court coverage, where CourtWire does not. Both CourtWire and Courthouse News allow you to search by party name, judge, attorney / law firm and keyword, with CourtWire also offering a nature of suit search option. One of the cool things about CourtWire is that they provide a brief summary of allegations for each case which allows you to run term searches and create customized alerts. You can run RSS daily or continuous feeds of new cases through your intranet, but that also means you could have multiple attorneys pulling the same complaint—and you get charged for each retrieval. Get your piggy bank out, because the multiple downloads and the continuous feeds will cost you a pretty penny.

One distinct advantage of Courthouse News is its’ Darkroom (see the top tabs on the homepage), and who doesn’t want a quaint little online art gallery accompanying their court delivery service? I can see it now: with every 5 complaints downloaded, you get 1 framed photograph for FREE!

Ok, so the Times New Roman font on Courthouse News is so 80s, but it still gets the job done. The bottom line is we’re talking about who gets to the court first—who is in line for that Thanksgiving sale first. And who wants the $1,000 designer dress or the $300 knock-off? No one will know unless you tell them.

That was as social as we got for the year. We spent $227 which was well under the budget, but we didn’t schedule very many activities. Our goal for 2010-11 is to be more active and provide some good fun for LLOPS. Please feel free to send any ideas or suggestions for social events to Jennifer Hill, next year’s Chair. Better yet, why not join the committee?

Respectfully submitted,

Jennifer Hill and Laurel Evans, LLOPS Social Committee Co-Chairs

Layoffs, budget cuts, closures, and furloughs are just a few of the dismal words facing today’s libraries. As no stranger to layoffs, I’ve relied on a slew of blogs/RSS feeds and twitter accounts to stay apprised of new openings, job hunting tips, résumé and interview recommendations, and all things encompassing the search for work. Here is my basic platform for job-hunting in the electronic age.

LibGIG

Outside of library associations and my personal network, LibGIG has proven to be the most valuable multi-faceted career assistant. Their services are well-rounded, offering regular updates on job opportunities, news, tips, blogs, etc. Staying on top of LibGIG is made easier thanks to twitter, @libgig_jobs, and their newsletter(presented by their parent company LAC Group). While other sites provide pieces to a puzzle; LibGIG presents a complete web package of job seeking aid.

Ask A Manager

This is a blog you will want to follow, regardless of whether you are searching for a job or not. Alison Green’s honest and professional words of wisdom span everything from the day to day, career goals, interviews, networking, applying, the odd, relationships, and more. Job markets and professional development can sometimes feel dark, stoic, and robotic. Luckily, Ask A Manager is personable and human, effectively connecting work place environments and people. She’s also on twitter: @AskAManager.

RSS Feeds

There are far too many library job websites that continually list open positions to follow via bookmarks or daily searches. While RSS requires a small amount of effort if you’ve never set it up, the results pay dividends. Sites you collect may come from around the globe, focusing on certain markets, regions, and associations. You can also manage RSS feeds for job databases (i.e. monster, indeed, and hotjobs) that will collect predefined keyword and search string results. This means no more searching day-in and day-out on the same sites: it’s delivered to you. I use Google Reader to maintain my feeds and highly recommend it.

Getting into the job-hunt mindset isn’t painless. Writing cover letters and résumés, looking for work, interviewing, and networking is a craft unto itself. Preparing yourself for success requires time, effort, and dedication. Having these resources at my fingertips laid out the first steps and prepared me for the next. If you have any search tips please comment. Good luck and remember to stay positive, connect with people, and remain involved in the community!

I would like an iPad. Would you like an iPad? Ok, so I haven’t even upgraded my phone to one that takes pictures, but I also don’t want to be branded a “late adopter.” The horrors. Well, if you go to law school at The Monterey College of Law in Seaside (sounds fancy), you can have one, according to this recent ABA Journal article. The school is providing iPads to their 1Ls to increase their study time both during law school and in preparing to take the bar.  Who wouldn’t want an extra 30 to 45 minutes to study while eating lunch, while getting a root canal, while having a romantic dinner with your loved one? Perhaps I’ll just stick with my freebie cell phone and consider a future upgrade to the iPhone. I just want to play Scrabble and manage my wardrobe with the Pocket Closet.

The committee focused on assembling a display for the LLOPS table at the AALL Annual Meeting, which will be set up and staffed by generous LLOPS member volunteers, and composing articles for the LLOPSCited Blog on marketing the library and individual job skills. Contributions to the blog included:

• Hochstetler, Marcus. “Marketing Your Need to Survive and Thrive.” LLOPS Cited Blog, 2 Oct. 2009.
• Schriwer, Tania. “BigLaw Twitterters: Flying Solo or Birds of a Feather.” LLOPS Cited Blog, 15 Apr. 2010.
• Stockert, Kate. “Go Viral! Spread the Word with Social Networking.” LLOPS Cited Blog, 10 Dec. 2009.

 This August the committee will need a new Chair. Mort Brinchmann currently holds the committee’s materials bag until the next committee chair is selected. Please contact Mort if you are interested in chairing the committee.

Respectfully submitted,

Kate Stockert

Amy Eaton then gave a great presentation about the top five patent-related questions that librarians typically receive. It was nice to be reassured that I am not the only one who thinks researching a company’s assigned patents is a real challenge. I think I’m calling Amy the next time I have a patent research question.

The K&L Gates library newsletter, AsktheLibrary!

Ellen Bowman, our intrepid newsletter editor, and frankly the lead writer too, accepted the AALL for Excellence in Marketing Award for Best Newsletter at this year’s annual meeting.

AsktheLibrary, our quarterly K&L Gates library newsletter, is a great medium for communicating our value to our lawyers. Our firmwide newsletter includes news about the firm’s print and electronic resources, free and low-cost resources available on the web, links to our online training guides  and other tools for navigating the information landscape. Congratulations to Ellen and the library staff at K&L Gates for winning this award.

I was recently lucky enough to be in England visiting my husband’s family. Before heading south-west to see Granny, we spent a few days in London and while there, decided to go see the Inns of Court. These professional associations have existed for many centuries and are housed in a series of lovely buildings in Central London. The buildings, organized around various courtyards and gardens, include offices as well as affiliated churches or chapels. I found it wonderful to meander along and imagine how different practice would be in such a historic context. The kids–4 teenagers including my two boys plus my niece and nephew–were polite enough about the trip, but clearly found the buildings themselves to be a bit boring. In an attempt to make things more interesting, we headed into Royal Courts of Justice and were immediately treated to the vision of a young barrister, complete with robe and wig, conducting an animated conversation over his cell phone.We wandered briefly, then went upstairs to peer through the windows into the courtrooms. As none of the kids had ever been into a courtroom, I suggested that we step inside to admire the room and to listen to the proceedings. The kids weren’t sure this was allowed, but I assured them that all courts are open to the public and that we would be welcome to enter. So, after a few admonitions about respectful behavior, we crept carefully through the beautiful carved wood doors and into the gallery seats. Alas, not two minutes later, the bailiff came round to where we were seated and asked us to leave. Turns out that we had chosen a criminal court (the judge was denying an appeal asking for a sentence reduction) and that in the UK, children under the age of 14 are not allowed to observe criminal proceedings. The kids were, as only teenagers could be, mortified that I had steered them so wrong, but I assured them it’s pretty cool to be able to say they’ve been thrown out of court by a guy in a long gray wig and red robe.