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Yep, tis I.<g> The author, Terry Carter, did an excellent job. This
all arose as a result of Lyn Warmath's interest in the issue and in an
off the cuff "survey" on the subject I posted to the PLL listserv this
April. I had 113 responses to the survey and Terry reported a summary
of those results in the article. He also interviewed other private law
librarians and helped to make the point that we bill what is given to
us...we have little or no way to generate billable work, therefore it is
difficult to place a billable hour "requirement" on firm librarians. By
requirement I mean "you must bill 1500 hours annually or else...". I
actually found very few firm librarians who are under that kind of
requirement. Most are expected to bill, but there is no set annual
quota they must meet. This is an issue I feel very strongly about. I
see billing for our work as a good thing, but it's also a "slippery
slope" kind of thing. We bill, therefore we must bill more and more
each year. IMNSHO, there's only so much billable research out there
that the associates and paralegals are willing to give away. Yes, we can
do it "Better, Faster, Cheaper", but convincing them to turn it over to
us is one of those constant struggles. <g>
The point was also made in the article by Mark Estes that most
librarians are being billed out at rates that are probably too low,
"[b]ut then law librarians are undervalued almost across the board."
Virginia L. Smith
Director of Library Services
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC
One West Fourth Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Ph: 336-721-3794
Fax: 336-726-9015
-----Original Message-----
From: Graesser, Christine L. [mailto:cgraesser@brbilaw.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 9:30 AM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: ABA article on law library billing
Our own Virginia Smith is featured in the July 2004 issue, "The
New Law Librarian: Firms Look to Make the Most of Their Librarians with
Billable-Hour Requirements"
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