I’m attending the American Association of Law Librarians (AALL) Conference this week in Portland, Oregon. It’s one of my favorite conferences. Law librarians are, as a group, friendly, unassuming, and knowledgeable, as I have discussed before.
I couldn’t help but wonder though as I roamed the exhibit hall and attended some of the sessions what the long-term impact AI will have on the role of the law librarian.
The Role of the Librarian
Consider the role of the law librarian. Librarians, especially law librarians, are knowledge managers and workers. They historically held the keys to knowledge and information: they knew where to find it, how to access it, and how to retrieve it. They are charged with managing the accumulated expertise of the profession to help solve legal problems.
But now and increasingly in the future, those keys may be held by an AI platform. With natural language processing, anyone (everyone) can access any and all knowledge and information. Combine this the inevitable financial constraints as law firms and corporations may come to view AI as replacing the human knowledge function.
The Historic Librarian
Of course, of any profession, law librarians have faced fundamental changes before and thrived. When I was a young lawyer, the law library in the firms in which I worked was a massive room housing books, periodicals, newspapers, and microfiche.
Both law and regular libraries employed the mysterious and downright mystical Dewey Decimal System. Accessing anything beyond the ordinary in these libraries typically required the skill of a trained librarian who could direct you to or find the information this then young lawyer needed.
Today’s Librarian
Contrast that, of course, to today, where the law library is no longer a physical space but a virtual one. Law librarians today still fill the role of knowledge and information management and access but the tools they use are different. Instead of the Dewey Decimal System, they use Google or Boolean searches. Different tools. Similar role.
But what happens when this now old lawyer can himself find and access the information without Dewey, Google, or Boolean?
Certainly, for the time being, librarians can and must have the ability to harness and make accessible the AI tools to enable lawyers and legal professionals to do that. They need to usher their lawyers into the AI age. To show them how to safely use the AI tools to their advantage (and that of their clients’) benefit.
The Paradox
But here‘s the paradox. By teaching and encouraging lawyers to use AI effectively, are law librarians basically working themselves out of a job? Once everyone can do what they need to do, what’s their role? What’s their value?
Of course, one option for the librarian is to hold on as tightly as they can to the old ways. To resist change. To argue, as some have, that prompting is a difficult chore that has to be mastered. That lawyers can’t do.
But that’s a mistake. Kodak, for example, was well aware of the potential for digital photography early on. But instead of embracing it, Kodak decided to work tirelessly to continue to market prompt print photography and not digital. Why? Because with print, you didn’t need film. Without film, Kodak’s revenue would dry up.
Of course, what happened is that Kodak didn’t jump on the digital bandwagon in time and ultimately went bankrupt.
But something else happened when the digital revolution came along. We now have more pictures than we can manage. We have more tools to alter and work with photos than most of us can use. Photography is a booming business. Humans are still needed to separate the wheat from the chaff. To determine what is real and what is fake.
Photography didn’t change. The tools used to master photography did. Kodak may not have survived but photography did. And the roles of those involved did as well.
The Evolving Librarian
The same may be true of law librarians. Yes, librarians find and mine information. But what they really do is master the tools needed for that finding and mining.
Just as they did in the past, law librarians’ roles will evolve from caretakers of the information to caretakers of the new tools that access the information. They need to be the guardians of those tools and how to safely use them, for what and when.
They need to be crucial in the evaluation and selection of the tools. They need to understand the risks and benefits and assist lawyers in mastering the relevant ethics. They need to assess and understand the long-range implications of the tools on the practice of law.
As one of the panels noted, the future role of the law librarian will include things like:
- Understanding algorithmic bias
- Managing privacy and security issues
- Understanding the impact of AI on critical thinking
- Managing the flow of misinformation
- Dealing with labor displacement
Tomorrow’s librarian will need to be in charge not of a library but of the AI function within a law firm.
And, among all those in the legal ecosystem, law librarians may indeed be in the best position of all to do that. They need to master this tech just like they mastered what came before.
An Inflection Point
Law librarians are at an inflection point. But instead of panicking, they need to stretch and yawn and say what the hell, just another change to master. Been there, done that.
But let’s be honest. Yes, we still have photography. But we don’t have as many professional photographers. The number of law librarians and what they do may change and change significantly.
Cornell Winston, AALL President, told us in his opening remarks that AALL has been around 119 years. I suspect librarians will still be getting together another 119 years but it may be in a different format and look a lot different.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads (Opens in a new window), a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.