INTRODUCTION
Those of you who work in law firms will agree, I am sure, that these are challenging times. It is not just a case of delivering high quality legal advice to clients more quickly and efficiently. Clients require innovative solutions from lawyers who can demonstrate an understanding of the industry within which they operate as well as the risks and challenges they face.
Clients have requested ‘value added’ services from their panel law firms for many years. Assisting with the fulfilment of this requirement is an opportunity for library teams to promote their skills and experience and engage even more closely with the business.
THE GENESIS OF OUR COLLABORATION WITH IN-HOUSE LAWYERS
My collaboration with in-house lawyers began almost 30 years ago when a few clients asked if they could visit our library. At that time, Norton Rose was located on the corner of Bishopsgate in the City of London and almost all resources were in hardcopy.
Of course we were delighted to help and they were amazed by our wealth of resources. I soon learnt that in-house lawyers rarely had access to a shelf of books let alone a library collection!
In the late 1980's I contributed to a short brochure which outlined the ‘value add’ services we made available to in-house lawyers – although it would be well over a decade before they were referred to in that way. At that time, our ‘value add’ offering to clients included access to the library, participation in our in-house training and copies of our briefings and publications.
The initiative was supported by Ron Cowles, our first Head of Business Development. Having been Legal Advisor to the British Coal Corporation, Ron particularly focused on the commerciality of our business and the need to compete for workFootnote 1 . He knew how much in-house lawyers would appreciate access to our library services and following his instigation later that year, I joined our legal team to deliver a client pitch too.
Today the value that library and KM professionals bring to the business is more widely recognised. We enable lawyers and business development teams to work more efficiently by providing timely, relevant and accurate information. It is a natural corollary to support our client's legal communities in the same way.
INITIATING COLLABORATION WITH SHELL
So when did our collaboration with Shell begin?
After hearing there was a law librarian at Shell, I reached out to Hilary in July 2014. We arranged to speak shortly afterwards. At that stage, Hilary had only been at Shell a few weeks.
On the call, I learnt about the challenges Hilary faced managing the library at Shell, the nature of their legal community and the resources available. I was also able to share our experience of providing library support to other clients and the ‘best practice’ we had learnt along the way.
One of the strengths of the Norton Rose Fulbright library team is our exceptional global reach. We have teams of highly experienced information professionals, across Europe, the States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, SE Asia and Latin America, and we work together on an almost daily basis.
In the early days of our relationship, it was premature to do more than ensure that our library managers in the States and the Netherlands were in touch with Shell's librarians in those countries. Two years later, Hilary's vision has led to an unrivalled collaborative initiative between Shell and their global panel law firms.
DEVELOPING OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH SHELL
Our partnership with Hilary developed as her role within Shell grew.
From the start, there has always been understanding and appreciation on both sides. Hilary assured us that when work was undertaken by our Library team in London, she would acknowledge our help when liaising with her lawyers and we knew this to be the case.
By the end of 2014, Hilary had sought assistance from the team on a number of occasions. In fact, she had sufficient confidence in the quality of their support that her ‘out of office’ message invited Shell's lawyers to seek help from our library team in her absence.
The enquiries received from Shell's lawyers were diverse and not unlike some of those we receive from our own fee earners. Examples include:
-
• We would like to find a precedent for a general security assignment given by a ship owner to a lending syndicate which includes the following terms….Can you help?
-
• I have been asked to provide the Advocate General's Opinion of case C-155/14 but can not find one in English. Can you?
-
• We need a copy of this from last week's Sunday Times. Do you have it?
-
• There is a potential merger between X and Y. I need to find out whether any anti-trust filings have been made yet and where they will need to be filed.
-
• Would you be able to provide these pages from an Australian text on the law of agency? (3rd ed.)?
In most cases however, the timeline to respond to in-house enquiries is far more relaxed than the ‘within the next hour’ scenario that we are used to with our own lawyers.
DEFINING OUR ROLE AND LEVERAGING OUR NETWORK
As well as providing a library enquiry service, our role is also to act as a gateway into our firm for queries of all kinds. Queries from Shell often require us to reach out to knowledge lawyers, partners or library staff in other regions with appropriate expertise. This is a great way to leverage our network of contacts within the firm – for Shell's benefit as well as ours.
Advice on practical technical issues can be as important as legal information. I will share a few examples.
Shell's know how database was built using SharePoint 2013 and Hilary needed advice to improve the search functionality. I was pleased to put Hilary in touch with someone working on our intranet who was really knowledgeable about SharePoint and search technologies.
One of Shell's PSL's in The Hague and their IT co-ordinator for Legal's projects sought advice regarding best practice in current awareness. In conjunction with one of our PSL's, we shared our global experience from a library and knowledge perspective. Following the call, I was able to put them in touch with our Global Head of Knowledge Systems and Client Products who was pleased to share their knowledge and experience using iSheets with other clients.
Since the start of our collaboration in mid-2014, Hilary and I have met several times and have catch up calls too. It is always helpful to share experiences and we can both learn from alternative approaches. Sometimes calls focus on a particular issue, such as demonstrating value of library services. On other occasions we are pleased to act as a sounding board, to validate a decision that Hilary is making. As one of their global panel law firms, we are pleased to be able to share our experience with Shell.
SHELL'S GLOBAL INFORMATION SERVICE – OUR EXPERIENCE
As with any project, leading up to the launch of the GIS in April 2017, communication was essential.
I regularly updated my library colleagues across our network about the London team's very good experiences. It was easy to get everyone on board with so many positive stories to share about collaboration with Hilary. Everyone is delighted to participate and each region is super keen to receive enquiries!
When we offer library support to clients, there is always an element of uncertainty. Some clients – despite considerable enthusiasm at outset – barely use our services.
When Hilary launched the GIS for Shell's legal community – there was uncertainty on both sides. She had not promoted her services to Shell's lawyers outside the UK, the US or the Netherlands and so this was an opportunity to learn more about their specific information needs.
Neither of us knew what level of take up to expect. Would we be inundated with queries from Shell's lawyers in countries where we either have no library/knowledge capability or no office at all?
But we are not concerned. It is an opportunity for us both – to learn and find creative solutions. Something information professionals do so well!
Three months on, our library teams in Australia, the States and London have addressed a total of 39 enquiries from Shell. Hopefully, over the coming months, Shell's lawyers in Canada, France, South Africa and other countries that we are nominated to support will start using the service too.
When Shell has a PSL ‘on the ground’ it often accelerates engagement. Earlier this year in Australia for example, Shell's PSL in Perth met our Library Head in Sydney and KM Director The library team is now starting to address training needs as well as auditing their hardcopy collection.
As Hilary explained, Shell was not involved in the decision to give any panel firm responsibility for dealing with enquiries from particular countries. The allocation of “responsibilities” was made collectively by the panel firms based on the location of offices and library staff as well as an effort to share potential work equitably.
Following the initial mapping of offices, it became clear that some of Shell's lawyers were located in countries where none of their panel firms had library staff or PSL's. So it then made sense to use time zones as a level two criteria. Our team in Australia are happy to receive enquiries from Papua New Guinea and New Zealand too.
We are perfectly positioned to offer a gold plated service to Shell's global network of lawyers.
WORKING TOGETHER – A ‘WIN WIN’ PARTNERSHIP
Our collaboration with Hilary is a ‘win win’ partnership. Hilary has been able to offer library and know how expertise to Shell's extensive global community and hugely raise her profile within the organisation as a result.
Similarly, some partners who previously did not use our service now understand and appreciate what we can offer. Shell's appreciation of our service has facilitated numerous conversations with fee earners, knowledge lawyers and business development who all recognise the benefits of our collaboration.
A few years ago I produced a simple one-page flyer about the library support offered to in-house lawyers which included endorsements from two clients. Hilary kindly advised:
“The Norton Rose Fulbright library team are an invaluable back up to the service I provide to Shell's lawyers. I throw all nature of enquiries at them and they always respond quickly and with well researched replies. If it's not something they can answer they will look to find someone who can. I could not imagine providing my service without them”.
We are thrilled to be Hilary's back up service – a virtual team to help extend her reach and impact across Shell's business.
KEY TAKE AWAY MESSAGES
Providing support to external clients is a great way to raise your status with your firms. Positive feedback from a satisfied client always reflects well on the team.
Remember to let your client relationship partner and BD know when you have provided assistance to a client. It is essential to keep the relevant people in your business in the loop whenever you interact with clients. Panel firms are usually asked by clients to provide a quarterly report outlining the ‘value add’ services they have delivered, so this is a chance to showcase the library's contribution.
Do not underestimate the importance of what might seem like a fairly simple library enquiry. From a partner's perspective, an in-house lawyer's request for a specific document might present an opportunity to pick up the phone and share practical experience.
