Every professional law librarian knows the feeling the moment a particularly difficult to please partner approaches with a research question and admits that he or she needs help. The librarian should also be viewed as the one person who is well informed about current projects. An understanding of the history and values of the firm, the personalities' of the partners and the methods of training associates are not things that can be considered equivalent to looseleaf filing, and therefore be outsourced. Librarians often play the role of advisor to nervous law clerks and young associates. Questions that associates would not dare ask a partner are routinely asked of librarians.
Basic questions covering cite checking, methodology and research tools are commonplace.
It is thoroughly rewarding to watch a first year associate mature into a competent attorney and know that you, the librarian, contributed to this individual's professional development. Developing good rapport with associates is important. Letting them voice their anxieties, their hopes, ambitions, and in return, relating anecdotes from the days when current partners were young associates, is a way of establishing trust. Many years ago, when I was working in the D.C. branch office of a Wall Street firm, I came in one morning to find the library trashed. On hearing me express my dismay over the mess, two young associates looked at each other rather sheepishly and admitted that Sunday night after a grueling day of work they had decided to relieve their tensions by engaging in a sword fight using the newspaper rods as swords.