This article by Rachel Brett highlights the key issues to be aware of when carrying out international company searches and reviews the information available online from the national company registries for some of the key European and offshore jurisdictions including: Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

This paper formed the basis of a seminar given by John Furlong and Susan Doe at the Canadian Association of Law Libraries Annual Conference in St Johns, Newfoundland in May 2005.

This article by Dr Anthony Smith describes how the British Records Association can help legal information professionals and the legal profession generally to conserve old legal records of both law firms themselves and of their clients. He also describes the activities and publications of the Association.

Because the focus of most of the themed articles in this issue of LIM is vendor relations from the point of view of the customer, it seemed sensible to allow the legal publishers to present their own views of relations with their customers to the readership, via a short survey carried out by BIALL's Legal Information Group.

Let's face it librarians have until relatively recently had a pretty stereotypical image which occasionally, perhaps justly, is one of quiet resolve where the library is your domain and those that enter should do so quietly and should not remove your materials. This image is reinforced by adverts, television, films and even dolls.

In June 2010 the first BIALL Supplier of the Year award was made to Wildy & Sons Ltd, following a survey of BIALL members. The chair of the Awards and Bursaries Committee at the time of the award was Susan Scorey. Some time after the event she talked to John Sinkins, Managing Director of Wildy's, about the award and customer relations more generally.

The purpose of this article, by Stephanie Biggs of Kirkland & Ellis International LLP, is to give an introduction to private equity. The article provides a brief overview of the industry, then looks in more detail at the two key processes in which private equity lawyers are involved: fundraising and doing deals. The author also looks at the resources available for researching private equity and provides a glossary of commonly used terms.

Over the last six months there have been a number of developments in legal information provision. The major publishers have released new services, and have updated existing products. As a busy information professional it can be difficult to keep up to date with all the changes, and there is not always time to evaluate the benefits of one service over another.

The need to monitor competitor activity and anticipate competitive actions is a standard activity for most businesses. In order to succeed and grow, firms need to understand what rival firms are doing, and furthermore what is happening in the overall business environment. However unlike a manufacturing company, or a high-street retailer, or indeed many other businesses, obtaining intelligence on competitors is not so easy for professional service firms.

Lexis and Westlaw are the biggest names in subscription legal database provision, and have been settled here in the UK long enough to be the subject of a little comparative critical examination. I hope to provide this in what follows, with the caveat that my experience is of academic subscriptions, which may vary in content from their commercial counterparts. I do have the advantage of access to the respective American academic versions, so that some comparisons can also be made in that direction.

Tax, national insurance, tax credits and the minimum wage are often difficult to understand. Those with questions frequently turn to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for answers, but the HMRC website is often out-of-date and confusing. Last year, Anne Redston launched the Cobweb Campaign to sweep out the dusty corners of this huge information database.

Conor Kennedy provides an overview of the Law Reform Commission's Library & Information Service

Professor William Binchy provides a summary of the legal system in the Republic of Ireland and reflects on constitutional developments and challenges facing the country, particularly in the light of the recent economic collapse.

Patricia T Rickard-Clarke writes on the complex issues relating to access to justice for the citizens of Ireland. Her article addresses the practical need for consolidation of legislation and the issues of making law accessible in a form that people can understand. The article also takes into account comparative developments in other jurisdictions.

You will all have noticed the proliferation of US law firms with offices in the UK, mainly London. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood (SABW) was formed in May 2001 as a result of a merger and is currently the second largest US law firm office in London (27 partners, 85 fee earners, 3 full-time library staff, one part timer, one freelance.) Like most of the US firms in London SABW concentrates on financial and corporate work — international finance, corporate securities, capital markets, tax and property.

Tax, (both corporate and personal tax) is one of the five main departments at City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP. In the following article, Dunstan Speight, Library Manager, considers the resources needed to support a tax practice and how these relate to the research requirements of tax lawyers.

This article is written by Clare Cowling, Director, Legal Records at Risk Project, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. Her article explores the hypothesis that modern private sector legal records are more at risk of loss than their historical equivalents. There are many reasons for this, but one factor, detailed in this article, appears to be the indifference or reluctance of legal practitioners themselves. The LRAR project seeks to allay any concerns practitioners may have about confidentiality and to raise their awareness of the potential commercial and historic value of their legal records. It will do this by a combination of case studies, interviews with stakeholders and investigations into the current information management and archiving practices of institutions specialised to law. In so doing it will provide guidance and advice on the more cost-effective management and preservation of legal records so that the history of change to non-governmental legal services in the UK over the past century will be accurately documented.

A job with a global law firm can involve meeting or working alongside colleagues from many different countries. In order to communicate effectively, we need to be aware of the different norms within which we work. Sara Batts, Jas Breslin and Susanna Winter, who together have many years’ experience working internationally, discuss three key areas which can help enhance our interactions with our counterparts overseas.

This article by Jas Breslin was, again, based on a presentation given at the BIALL Conference in Belfast in June 2012. It provides a background to the implementation of Research@mofo, a centralised enquiry service run by the library team for the benefit of the firm and its clients.