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Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture 2024
Law Librarianship: Past, Present … and an Artificial Future?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2025
Abstract
The 9th Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture took place during the BIALL Annual Conference at the Queens Hotel, Leeds on Thursday 13 June 2024. David Wills delivered the lecture and looked back over the last three decades and reflected on the many changes and challenges, especially with regard to technological developments, that have impacted on the law library and legal information world. His focus then shifted to more recent times and developments in law at a global level and the associated challenges of curating resources and collections to match the wide variety of interests across legal scholarship. The lecture touched on the demands in legal education, changes to publishing models, the financial challenges facing higher education and, most recently, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that altered research and study patterns, and which accelerated the demand for digital resources. Finally, the lecture looked to the next 30 years and the unstoppable rise of artificial intelligence (AI), in order to determine what AI would mean for the future of law librarianship. The lecture identified the part law librarians and legal information professionals could play concerning AI and how they could help to protect academic integrity.
Keywords
- Type
- Main Features
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians
References
Endnotes
1 A brief summary of Willi Steiner's career together with the Memorial Lectures that have celebrated his life can be found Cambridge University Press’ Cambridge Core website for LIM at: <www.cambridge.org/core/journals/legal-information-management/lim-article-spotlight-collections/willi-steiner> accessed 22 October 2024
2 A more extensive account of Willi Steiner's life, career and professional achievements can be found in the article: Jules Winterton, ‘In Celebration of Willi Steiner’ (2003) 2(3–4) Legal Information Management 140–149. <www.cambridge.org/core/journals/legal-information-management/article/in-celebration-of-willi-steiner/BDD5F7D7C2305117F58EDB9AA1F0EB1F#article> accessed 22 October 2024
3 The full title is The Digest: Annotated British, Commonwealth and European Cases. It is now published by Butterworths LexisNexis.
4 Current Law and the Current Law Year Book were published jointly by Sweet & Maxwell Ltd and Stevens & Sons Ltd. More recently this title has been published by Sweet & Maxwell and Thomson Reuters.
5 The Irish Current Law, the Irish Current Law Monthly Digest and the Irish Current Law Year Book were published by Round Hall Sweet & Maxwell, latterly Thomson Reuters (Professional) Ireland Limited.
6 Halsbury's Law of England was published by Butterworths, later LexisNexis Butterworths.
7 The Laws of Scotland: Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia was published by Butterworths, latterly by Butterworths LexisNexis.
8 Halsbury's Statutes of England and Wales was published by Butterworths, latterly by Butterworths LexisNexis as bound volumes together with its associated publications as mentioned in this article.
9 The 2nd edition of Raistrick's Index was published in 1993 by Bowker-Saur while the 3rd and 4th editions were both published by Sweet & Maxwell in 2008 and 2013 respectively.
10 Dane, Jean and Thomas, Philip A, How to Use a Law Library (Sweet & Maxwell, 1979)Google Scholar. 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions followed in 1987, 1996 and 2001 respectively. Peter Clinch has written a number of publications about legal research. The reference in this article is to Using a Law Library: a student's Guide to Legal Research Skills (Blackstone Press, 1992). A 2nd edition was published in 2001 with a reprint in 2007 (also published by Blackstone).
11 Lord Woolf has an entry on Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Woolf,_Baron_Woolf>.369 accessed 22 October 2024
12 Woolf, Lord, ‘The Rule of Law and a Change in the Constitution’ (2004) 63(2) The Cambridge Law Journal 317–330CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article was a published version for the CLJ of the Squire Law Library Centenary Lecture 2004 delivered at the Cambridge Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge on Wednesday 3 March 2004.
13 Ibid.
14 <www.lexisnexis.co.uk/> accessed 22 October 2024
15 <https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw> accessed 22 October 2024
16 <https://justis.vlex.com/> accessed 22 October 2024
17 <https://home.heinonline.org/> accessed 22 October 2024
18 <www.wildy.com/> accessed 22 October 2024
19 Brenda Hale, ‘The Changing Legal Landscape’ (2019) 19(4) Legal Information Management 217 – 223 <www.cambridge.org/core/journals/legal-information-management/article/changing-legal-landscape/D8286D44BCF0775B8B9F04FEB2342A93> accessed 22 October 2024
20 M.A. Lekner (compiled by) and W.A.F.P. Steiner (under the direction of), Law Catalogue (14 volumes) (Oceana Publications, Inc, 1974).
21 See: <https://lexum.com/conf/conf2002/en/index.html> and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Access_to_Law_Movement> accessed 22 October 2024
22 <www.bailii.org/> accessed 22 October 2024
23 See: <www.bl.uk/cyber-incident/> and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Library_cyberattack> accessed 22 October 2024
24 <www.oed.com/> accessed 22 October 2024
25 <collinsdictionary.com/> accessed 22 October 2024
26 Peters, Declan, 10 Ways AI is Changing Law Firm Management (AI and Lawtech) (Law Society, 2023)Google Scholar <www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/ai-and-lawtech/partner-content/10-ways-ai-is-changing-law-firm-management> accessed 22 October 2024
27 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#History> and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence#Philosophy> accessed 22 October 2024
28 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_(computer_scientist)> accessed 22 October 2024
29 Weizenbaum, Joseph, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation (WH Freeman and Company, 1976)Google Scholar. The quotation is taken from the Wikipedia website relating to this publication: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Power_and_Human_Reason> accessed 22 October 2024
30 John Larkin, ‘Lines on Maps and the Frontiers of Legal Research’ (2012) 12(4) Legal Information Management 246 – 251 <www.cambridge.org/core/journals/legal-information-management/article/lines-on-maps-and-the-frontiers-of-legal-research/AC4AEBABC9FADD245E8A26B65BD21F30> accessed 22 October 2024
31 See: <www.aoshearman.com/en/news/ao-launches-saas-partnership-with-microsoft-and-harvey> and Cristina Criddle and Suzi Ring, ‘Allen & Overy rolls out AI contract negotiation tool in challenge to legal industry’ Financial Times 21 December 2023 <www.ft.com/content/f1aff4d0-b2c5-4266-aa0a-604ef14894bb> accessed 22 October 2024
32 Op.cit. 26
33 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT> accessed 22 October 2024
34 Ibid.
35 Alexander Dittel and Scarlet Mitchell, ‘AI-Generated Pleading: Separating Facts from Fictions’ (PLC Magazine, January/February 2024) <https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/w-042-1346?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true> accessed 22 October 2024
36 The Bar Council, ‘New Guidance on Generative AI for the Bar’ (Press Release, 30 January 2024) <www.barcouncil.org.uk/resource/new-guidance-on-generative-ai-for-the-bar.html> accessed 22 October 2024
37 Thomson Reuters, ’Thomson Reuters Launches Generative AI-Powered Solutions to Transform How Legal Professionals Work’ (Press Release, 15 November 2023) <www.thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2023/november/thomson-reuters-launches-generative-ai-powered-solutions-to-transform-how-legal-professionals-work.html> accessed 22 October 2024
38 LexisNexis, ‘LexisNexis Launches Lexis+ AI to the UK Legal Market’ (Press Release, 21 June 2024) <www.lexisnexis.com/community/pressroom/b/news/posts/lexisnexis-launches-lexis-ai-to-the-uk-legal-market?srsltid=AfmBOoq1u0pffzQF6o4WnU442xa2CXgExfiDTRQ61H5_9uZZZn00K05W> accessed 22 October 2024
39 https://vlex.com/ and Legal IT Professionals, ‘vLex Launches Vastly Expanded Vincent Legal GenAI Toolset, and AI-Focused Co-Development Lab’ (Legal IT Professionals Latest News, 17 April 2024) <www.legalitprofessionals.com/global-news/13801-vlex-launches-vastly-expanded-vincent-legal-genai-toolset-and-ai-focused-co-development-lab> accessed 22 October 2024
40 <www.iclr.co.uk/products/iclr-4/case-genie/> accessed 22 October 2024
41 William A Steiner, Future Trends in International Law Librarianship (1995) 26(2) The Law Librarian 316–320.
42 The ‘LIM Article Spotlight Collections’ on Cambridge University Press’ Cambridge Core platform highlight a selection of articles concerning AI related matters, written for Legal Information Management, some of which are authored by law librarians: <www.cambridge.org/core/journals/legal-information-management/lim-article-spotlight-collections/lim-collection-law-legal-informatics-ai-and-information-retrieval> accessed 22 October 2024
43 European Parliament, ‘Artificial Intelligence Act: MEPs Adopt Landmark Law’(European Parliament News, 13 March 2024) <www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240308IPR19015/artificial-intelligence-act-meps-adopt-landmark-law> accessed 22 October 2024
44 <www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-for-artificial-intelligence> accessed 22 October 2024