Outsourcing in private law libraries since the Baker & McKenzie action

Abstract

Describes how on March 31, 1995, the Chicago office of the law firm of Baker & McKenzie dismissed the entire library staff of three professionals, seven paraprofessionals, and additional 25 support staff. While the publicly stated reasons for this action were to bring the library more into the electronic age and to make it more global, a recent $3,700,000 award for sexual harassment and a bloated staff‐to‐attorney ratio of two staff for every attorney, were the influencing causes. Outsourcing in business, and in academic libraries, is not a new phenomenon. Cataloging departments are most likely to be outsourced because it reallocates resources, produces higher quality of cataloging, and there is a well‐developed infrastructure of vendors who provide cataloging on a contract basis. Private law libraries outsource some of their functions, but not their reference desks. Discusses the literature of outsourcing and presents an outsourcing survey of private law firms.

Citation

Miles, K. (1996), "Outsourcing in private law libraries since the Baker & McKenzie action", The Bottom Line, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 10-13. https://doi.org/10.1108/08880459610116229