When we examine the implications of US and UK governmental responses to the events of 9/11 for the privacy rights of their citizens, we have to begin from the understanding that even prior to 9/11 there were relatively few congruencies between the two legal systems. While neither country has an explicit constitutional right to privacy, in the US the Supreme Court decided in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) that for many of the other constitutional rights to be meaningful, there had to be at least an implicit right to privacy derivable from the Constitution. In contrast, the concept of a right of personal privacy, to protect the individual from third parties generally, or from government in particular, is one which, until recently, has been largely alien to the law of the United Kingdom. Unlike the situation in the United States, the judiciary in the UK has consistently declined to provide specific sectoral privacy rights, via the common law, that might eventually be developed into a general right of privacy. Legislative attempts to create such a general right have met with an equal lack of enthusiasm. Where specific sectoral statutory protections of privacy have been adopted by the UK Parliament they have, almost without exception, come about as a result of pressures at an international level, not the least as a result of actions, or threats of actions, under the European Convention on Human Rights, or as a result of economic requirements consequent upon the UK's membership of the EU.

There are currently 18,456 attorneys and Candidate attorneys registered with the Law Society of South Afric and 5,941 registered law firms (CLE 2002). Data is not yet available regarding the size distribution of these law firms but a glance at any of the national legal directories will reveal that the majority of attorneys operate as solo practitioners or in association with a few colleagues. A large city practice will generally be well supplied with information resources and with assistance from a librarian or information professional. In a small practice, the information resources that the attorney has at his or her disposal may be limited to a few textbooks, supplemented in some cases with access to electronic databases and Internet resources. Small practices seldom employ information professionals, although they may make use of the services of information agencies and independent contractors to assist with research and/or information management.

In 2008, BIALL held a pre-conference workshop in Dublin entitled “Back to Basics: Cataloguing and Classification”. The workshop raised some interesting questions about the quality of cataloguing training provided by library schools and law libraries. Although cataloguing in British law libraries has been the subject of research, no study has yet explored cataloguing in Irish law libraries. This study by Clare O'Dwyer redresses this lack of information by focusing exclusively on the Irish context. The perceptions and expectations of cataloguers are examined using a multiple case study design combining interviews and questionnaires. The libraries selected for case study are representative of the three main types of law libraries in Ireland: a professional society law library, a government law library and a law firm library. Following analysis and discussion of the research findings, the study concludes with a series of recommendations regarding the curriculum for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and further training of cataloguers in Irish law libraries.

A presentation about collaboration, itself the product of a collaboration, looking at a collaborative project as an example of the value of people from different teams working together! That was Peter Griffith and Pete Smith at the BIALL Conference 2014 in Glasgow, a conference which took as its theme ‘law as a business.’ They discuss the challenges with reference to the LawSync project.

This new service won the Halsbury's Award for the Best Legal Information Service – Non-Commercial Sector at the recent BIALL Conference in Dublin. Chris Holland explains the background to the project and outlines plans for its future development.

The market in academic monographs is problematic, and sales have been in decline for decades. Concurrently, Open Access models of publishing are being developed and open content licenses designating a ‘some rights reserved’ status for content have been employed to provide a legal framework to reflect the changing ways content is used online. In the context of these innovations, Frances Pinter and Nicholas Bown describe Knowledge Unlatched, a not-for-profit library consortium project which seeks to combine a financially viable Open Access model with the use of open content licences to create a more efficient market in scholarly books to the benefit of all stakeholders in the academic publishing ecosystem.

In this article, based on a presentation at the BIALL Annual Conference in 2019, Renae Satterley and Adam Woellhaf discuss the methodology and potential effectiveness of using contingent valuation surveys in law libraries. Their approach is based on the Middle Temple Library's experience of running such a survey in 2018.

The National Archives has an important role in providing access to records of crime because of its role as the national archive for the records of the higher law courts and central government departments. Because of its status as the national archives for the United Kingdom, it has a pivotal role in shaping and influencing the developing freedom of information and data protection issues concerning records of crime. As Nigel Taylor describes in this short article, it has also created internal structures to cope with the increasing workload, complexity and need for transparency when dealing with these matters.

This paper by Professor Gillian Triggs seeks to explore whether the traditional principles of public international law are ‘fit for purpose’ in responding to such contemporary threats to collective security by reference to three issues: the regulation of the use of force; the need to balance the sovereign rights of states with humanitarian concerns; and the relationship between human rights and the orthodox rules applicable to prisoners of war and security detainees.

In this article, Masoud Gerami, Managing Director, and Aidan Hawes, Head of Commercial Development, offer an exploration of the history of Justis, and the influence the company has had on the delivery of legal information over its 30-year history. They describe the development of technology over this time, from the rise of optical media through to the features offered by today's online legal research technology, focusing on Justis’ key milestones over this period. They discuss the range of innovations Justis has been responsible for, the changes in the legal research industry, and offer an insight into the future aspirations of the company.

This paper is based on a parallel session presented at the BIALL Conference 2017 by Corryn Walker. The content focusses on a project undertaken by Manchester Metropolitan University Library during 2015/2016 to revamp their ‘Welcome and Induction’ programme. The project was coordinated by Corryn Walker and Elaine Cooke, both Deputy Library Services Managers. The article covers the background to, and motivation behind the project, its aims and objectives and the changes made to improve how the library welcomes new students to the service.

Knowledge management is still a difficult issue within law firms. One of the potential barriers to widespread adoption of knowledge management in law firms has been cited as cultural resistance. In order to better understand this obstacle, a Delphi survey was conducted with key knowledge management experts in US and UK law firms. There were six factors that focused on elements of cultural resistance. This article, written by Elana Zeide and Jay Liebowitz, highlights the findings.

In the current economic climate, many law librarians are having to deal with enquiries relating to various aspects of insolvency law with which they may not be familiar. Richard Fergusson, an insolvency specialist at Keeble Hawson in Leeds, has written an overview of the different types of insolvency and the processes involved in each.

Mark Stanley and Tamara Eisenschitz examine the relationship between professional support lawyers and information professionals in law firms of varying sizes. The results broadly support the hypothesis that tensions in larger firms between the two groups are less apparent. More importantly tensions are reduced where each group is doing clearly delineated work, irrespective of the firm's size. Tensions between the two groups are no longer the issue they once were, but these could reignite, especially if information professionals with legal qualifications and PSLs without fee earning experience vye for similar work. This paper recommends that to avoid frictions it is essential for law firm managers to get to grips with the nature and capabilities of these two groups and utilise them appropriately.

“Wales, it has to be said, has come a very long way in a short time.” was the opening line by Sir David Lloyd Jones in his speech on, “The Law Commission and Law Reform in a Devolved Wales” to the Wales Governance Centre Annual Lecture in Aberystwyth in March 2013.1 This brief overview by Lillian Stevenson attempts to discuss this statement using selected documents published after the 2011 referendum in which the people of Wales voted in favour of extending the law making powers of the National Assembly.

Guy Holborn revisits the research he carried out in preparing the chapter on law libraries from 1850 to 2000 in the Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland. Much of the material he gathered was not included in the chapter as published for reasons of space. Drawing from both the previously published chapter and the unpublished material, he selects four themes relevant to BIALL in its 50th anniversary year: legal education and law libraries, the development of law firms and their information services, the content of law libraries and the information needs of the profession, and the emergence of the professional law librarian.

Guy Holborn, Librarian of Lincoln's Inn, considers whether the Inns of Court libraries have a future in the digital age. He discusses their longevity and their context within the profession. Unfortunately, the past gives several examples of such libraries which have not survived, but he is confident that history will not repeat itself.

Mary Gaynor gives a brief outline of the historical context of the establishment and development of the Law Society of Ireland library service. She describes core services to solicitor members and trainee solicitors. The impact of the economic recession on the number of solicitors entering, and staying within the profession, is discussed in the context of how the library has adapted to meet the changing needs of its users.

In this article Jackie Fishleigh provides an introduction to the issue of Big Data, gives the definitions for the subject and offers an explanation of the key issues about Big Data and what involvement we have as information professionals.

In this, the third of a trilogy of articles for LIM written by Raj Kumar Bhardwaj, the author addresses the move from print to digital legal information within the Indian judicial system. He describes briefly the historical development of the legal system and the enormous backlog of cases that are pending throughout the court structure, before turning attention to the role of ICT in the legal system and the moves under way to create a more efficient electronic administration for the judiciary in India.