As GenAI continues to work its way into the legal sphere, law librarians are working to find their place in the new paradigm, according to a panel from the recent AALL Conference
CHICAGO — It’s clear that the law librarian and information professional community are in a state of flux. On one hand, law firms and academic institutions are more aware of the value of their library and research than ever before, according to the Thomson Reuters Institute’s recent Staffing Ratio Survey.
The survey found that law firms have reversed a recent trend in law library personnel and associated costs, taking what had been a 4.7% decline between 2017-2022 in the number of library and research personnel as compared to the rest of the firm, and turning that into 5.3% growth in personnel over the past year. In fact, of all the individual roles measured by the survey, knowledge management professionals (+26.3%) and library & research management (+9.8%) saw the largest year-over-year growth in terms of full-time equivalent employees.
On the other hand, however, there is the looming influence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), which is set to transform how the legal profession operates, by even the most modest accounts. And part of that transformation means automating and productizing some law firm tasks, including those undertaken by law librarians and information professionals. This transformation will necessitate that law library professionals learn new, more tech-driven skills to adapt to how work processes will transform across their organizations.
So where does that leave the law librarian community? The Hot Topic: Artificial Intelligence & the Future of Law Libraries session at the 2024 American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) conference attempted to chart two potential futures — the best- and worst-case scenarios — and describe how to prepare AALL membership for success.
The vicious and virtuous
The panel presented the results of AALL’s Future of Law Libraries: Artificial Intelligence, Opportunities, and Advancement initiative — a series of roundtables held at various institutions throughout the 2023-2024 academic year. At each of these roundtables, participants tackled various parts of law libraries and how AI will impact their growth and operations into the future.
In each of these areas, participants were asked to envision two separate futures: a virtuous cycle, in which law libraries are able to thrive in the age of GenAI; and a vicious cycle, in which technology hampers or even causes the demise of the modern law library. Then, participants were asked to consider how law libraries would potentially arrive at each of those points.
The panel stressed that law librarians need to be advocates, both for themselves and for the necessary technology to position law libraries as a trusted resource for technological knowledge and execution.
Here is what those roundtable participants considered the best and worst-case scenarios for various aspects of law libraries:
Staffing — The vicious cycle occurs as law libraries begin to cut staff again as AI replaces their capabilities. In a particularly dire scenario, this could even mean dropping down to just one employee in a library, which is overall managed by AI. The panel participants said libraries may land in this future if librarians don’t get out in front “and make a case for the value of the library.”
In the virtuous cycle, librarians do just that, finding a way to leverage AI to demonstrate their value. And indeed, in this scenario, librarians are valued by their institutions and receive institutional support to be proactive and a leader in AI. It’s important, the panel said, to “hire and train our staff specifically to be the experts in these areas.”
Services — In the vicious cycle, less expensive, automated tech does things that look similar to human beings, but at lower quality. This causes stakeholders to decide librarians and their services aren’t worth the cost. Law libraries could end up in this scenario if they “fail to show our value on top of technology.”
The virtuous cycle, meanwhile, pairs law libraries with technology for even greater services than previously thought imaginable. Librarians use GenAI to eliminate drudgery and streamline workflows. They also become experts in the use of GenAI, becoming a hub for the organization and “showing people why it’s not scary.”
Space —The vicious cycle envisions a world in which law libraries themselves are largely underutilized. Similar to trends following the introduction of eBooks, AI may reduce physical foot traffic, leading to fewer resources for the library. This could also result in community disconnect if fewer people are coming in-person to the library — a scenario described by one participant as “a dystopian hellscape.”
While there may not necessarily be unlimited space in the virtuous cycle, it is, more importantly, optimized space. Here, librarians are seen as experts and can create spaces for those in their organizations to learn about AI and get guidance. Librarians can also utilize technology to create flexible spaces, using libraries in a variety of ways to strengthen and support community connections.
Instruction — The vicious cycle has AI doing what they librarians do to instruct their charges, but on a larger scale. In this future, print media is dead, so there is no need for information curators because content providers are offering their services directly to subscribers. User standards are downgraded as long as the product is good enough, AI models that are tough to build and maintain eventually break down, and libraries can’t right these wrongs.
On the other side, the virtuous cycle sees librarians spending time learning about AI and translating their knowledge for their organizations. Librarians learn the difference between hype and reality, and let AI do what it does well while perfecting other tasks like creating niche content. This allows for reallocation of resources rather than losing them, transitioning from being storehouses to creators and curators of information. As one panelist said, “Own the AI, and don’t seed the critical considerations.”
Needs and seeds
With those potential pathways in mind, the AALL panel laid out what it called “needs and seeds” — the tasks that today’s law librarians need to undertake to achieve a virtuous future, and the takeaways that will help them accomplish those tasks.
For the needs, the panel first stressed that law librarians need to be advocates, both for themselves and for the necessary technology to position law libraries as a trusted resource for technological knowledge and execution. Law librarians should seek to be part of decision-making processes for any AI implementation, panelists said, adding that librarians also should advocate for legal research instruction at all levels, and for preserving and advancing the profession of law librarians as critical thinkers and evaluators of legal information.
The [GenAI] transformation will necessitate that law library professionals learn new, more tech-driven skills to adapt to how work processes will transform across their organizations.
The panel also stressed the importance of working throughout the organization on AI initiatives. Law librarians should team with privacy experts to seek proactive and ethical privacy policy development, advance technology, and ensure its proper usage. Teaming with finance colleagues, law librarians should push for increased financial support and resource allocation. This includes resources not just for AI implementation, but also for training and ensuring that librarians and the organization as a whole are upskilled. Finally, law librarians, acting with the organization as a whole, should promote their own expertise, letting IT departments, legal counsel, leadership committees, and other groups know what’s going on and why libraries are an important resource.
To that end, the panel also viewed collaboration as a seed, a key tool in librarians’ belts to be a part of the future. Law librarians have the ability to not only use data effectively, panelists explained, but to create new and unique data that will be a crucial part of the future. Even today, librarians can spearhead tasks like converting print publications into formats that can be ingested, collaborate on research and pro bono centers, and begin to build democratized models that can spread to all.
Finally, as was a theme throughout the conference, the panel urged AALL attendees to keep this discussion going, both in private conversations and in public proclamations such as annual reports from the library. Given the growing impact of GenAI, time is of the essence, panelists added. “We need to do this now. The difference in discussions between the October and May roundtables was incredible. If we wait six months, we’re going to be left behind.”
