by Anna L. Endter

In March I wrote a post about incorporating member news and profiles here on the blog.

I think it would be nice to bring back this connection between members.  We are interested in hearing about what you’re up to!

Robyn Hagle, former LLOPS President, graciously agreed to sit for an interview with me to discuss her new job at Graham & Dunn.  As many of you know, Robyn was a reference librarian at Perkins Coie for six years before making the jump to Graham & Dunn in February 2013.  Here’s what she had to say about her new position.

Why did you decide to make the move to Graham & Dunn?

I wanted to make a change and I felt like it was the right point in my career to introduce change.  I saw the move as an opportunity to diversify my skills and get more management experience.  The part-time schedule also worked well for my family.

How is working at Graham & Dunn, which is a smaller law firm, different than being at Perkins Coie?

In my job now, I’m seeing the whole scope of the library.  I touch everything in the library from opening the mail, routing periodicals, technical services and reference.  I do similar contract management/vendors relations work as I did at Perkins but that will change in the future.  I think that I will end up doing more contract management and vendor relations than I did at Perkins but I haven’t really seen the full scope of that work at Graham & Dunn – yet. I also do the same amount of reference and research but it is on-demand throughout the day instead of sitting at a reference desk during a certain time.

How do you receive reference requests?

Sometimes attorneys drop by my office in person.  A lot is still sent via email.  I don’t just do reference now though, I have a lot of job duties to manage at the same time.  My number one priority is doing research for attorneys and I’m usually able to get everything done by the end of the day.

Have the reference requests changed?  How?

It seems like the research requests at Graham & Dunn are a little more complicated than what I used to do at Perkins.  At Perkins, I got a lot of requests for dockets and cases.  I don’t get those kinds of requests now, the legal assistants and secretaries seem to know how to do that kind of stuff for themselves.

I will say that I do more environmental and land use research now.  And more administrative law research, too.  On the other hand, I’m doing a lot less IP research and I’m using far fewer electronic resources overall.

How much competitive intelligence research are you doing these days?

Not as much as I did at Perkins.  I’ve offered to do this kind of work and I think it will come in the future.  I’ve talked to the competitive intelligence and conflicts groups and I may be able to assist with those areas at some point.

Right now, my focus has been on putting into place some fundamental resources and processes like creating West Clips for attorneys (for current awareness/business development).  I’m also working on identifying areas where I can do new things like developing training programs.  I think that the training I do at Graham & Dunn will be different than at Perkins because people here seem to already understand the general framework for and knowledge about the legal system.  They don’t need an introduction to the American legal system but a class on Advanced Google might be helpful.

Have you identified any goals or things you’d like to accomplish yet?

Yes, I’m going to focus on moving away from print and to electronic resources.  My reason for doing that would be to increase access (for members of the firm) and to provide currency (of materials).

I will also need to work on the catalog because I want to do a weeding of the print collection to get rid of things that don’t get used.  To do that I will need to update the catalog.  This is a big project that is on the horizon.

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Thanks to Robyn for her time!  If you’d like to share news and/or be interviewed for the blog, send me an email.  It would be great to learn about what our members are up to and to share changes (big and small) with the group.