Wanted: Customer conversations

This is the first post to WestBlog from Bob Azman, vice president of Customer Experience Operations at West. Bob will be a regular contributor to WestBlog to discuss West’s customer service and the feedback he gets from you:

Some of you may have recently attended the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) conference in Portland, Ore.

What a great city that many of us discovered for the first time during this year’s conference!

The camp-themed West booth at AALL - complete with campfire, tents and picnic tables – provided a great venue to talk with librarians about their comments, suggestions and concerns. In fact, more than 70 customers did just that. They provided us suggestions about our products, services like MyAccount, billing, account representation, training and pricing.

We’re working to address the comments, where appropriate, and in the future will share improvements we’re implementing as a result of the feedback we heard at AALL on the show floor and in focus groups.

But please don’t wait for a convention to talk with us.

I want to hear from you frequently. By becoming a regular contributor to WestBlog, this will be a great place for me to “talk” on the Web with any West customer. But if you prefer e-mail, we also have our customer experience feedback box at west.customerexperience@thomsonreuters.com.

You also can call me directly. That’s right. Just dial me up at 1-800-249-WEST.

I hope the conversations we have on this blog, and through e-mail and on the phone, will give us an opportunity to informally communicate about your experiences with West.

Bob Azman
Vice President, Customer Experience Operations
West

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A rose of a city

“The City of Roses” was a great host for AALL, but it’s time for us to leave Portland and head back to Minnesota.

(Image courtesy: AALL)

We hope you enjoyed our blog posts from the meeting and the videos, photos and text we brought you.

Next year, AALL takes its show to Washington, D.C.

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Arthur Miller interview featured at AALL

A video interview featuring West Key Author Arthur Miller was shown here at AALL as part of the West town hall on legal research skills. We blogged about that event in a previous post.

We broke the 14 minute interview with Miller in half, into two video clips:

Arthur Miller (Part 1): Legal research and writing training at law schools

Arthur Miller (Part 2): The “starting point” for legal research and use of technology for it

We welcome your comments to Arthur Miller’s remarks.

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West rewards library marketing excellence

Law libraries recognize the importance of getting the word out about their services.

The AALL/West Excellence in Marketing Awards honor outstanding achievement in public relations activities by an individual, a group of individuals, a library, a Chapter, an SIS, a Consortium, a Caucus, or any other group affiliated with the Association.

AALL believes public relations is a critical responsibility of nearly every member of the library profession and they issue the Excellence in Marketing Awards to inspire, educate and encourage promotional activities by the AALL membership.

This year’s winner for Best Brochure was the Law Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

Leon Scioscia talked to us about the Law Library of Congress and showed us the winning brochure:

The other four 2008 AALL/West Excellence in Marketing Award winners are:

Best Campaign
Rhode Island State Law Library (Providence, RI)
Justice Rules in Rhode Island-An Educational Collaborative

Best Newsletter
Jacob Burns Law Library (Washington D.C.)
Legal Miscellanea: A Newsletter for the Friends of the Jacob Burns Law Library

Best Public Relations Toolkit
Wahab Public Law Library (Virginia Beach, VA)
Welcome to Wahab!

Best Use of Technology
King & Spalding (Houston, TX)
Articles & Alerts Monitor of Peer Law Firms

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Case Notebook preview

Craig Larson, director, New Product Development at West, is at AALL showing off Case Notebook from LiveNote. It’s an electronic case file for litigators and will be available in the Fall of 2008 .

Larson gave us a preview of the capabilities of Case Notebook and how it is organized, in this video:

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Research skills white paper

As we mentioned in a previous post, a white paper distributed at a town hall discussion hosted by West at AALL is now available.

The “Partnership and Solutions for Preparing Job-Ready Attorneys” white paper addresses the key issues in the discussion surrounding the gap between desired and actual legal research skills among law students and new associates.

The discussion also was previewed in a Westcast podcast produced last week, a 20-minute discussion that featured Monice Kaczorowski, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP; Karl Gruben, St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami; and Lezlie Bartz and Anne Ellis from West.

The new white paper on legal research builds on the discussion sparked by the “Research Skills for Lawyers and Law Students,” white paper produced by West last year.

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West’s Anne Ellis talks about AALL

Anne Ellis, senior director, West Librarian Relations has experienced many AALL Annual Meetings in her career.

We asked her to give us her perspective on why it’s important for West to be at AALL and continue the strong relationships with law librarians, in this video interview:

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West party Monday night

West held “Librarian Camp” as the theme of its customer appreciation party last night at the Hilton Hotel serving as AALL headquarters in Portland.

We’ve posted some photos on our Flickr page.

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The Daily Rose

“The Daily Rose” is the daily newspaper for AALL 2008. Named appropriately, since Portland is known as “The City of Roses.”

The paper features articles and photo coverage of the sessions and events at AALL. We talked about it with Tim Kelly, co-editor of the paper, from Willamette University College of Law:

“The Daily Rose” is available in print and online. It also involves a blog, which provided information about Portland and the meeting events ahead of time to attendees to help them plan and prepare.

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Why come to AALL?

No matter where they work – in law firms, law schools or government agencies – the law librarians at AALL have good reasons for coming to the meeting.

Many cite the networking opportunities with their colleagues. They also come for the career development opportunities.

We interviewed a few librarians at AALL for WestBlog:

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New photos from Portland

We added some photos from AALL to our Westlaw Flickr page.

More to come!

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Librarians go to camp at AALL

One look around the West booth area at AALL and you get the sense you may be nestled into the scenic woods not far from Mt. Hood.

That’s the idea.

The large poster of the mountain – and the grass – may be fake but the pine trees are the real deal.

Kathy Granger, director of trade shows for West and the North American Legal businesses of Thomson Reuters, says like camp AALL is a time for law librarians to learn, enjoy existing friendships and cultivate new ones.

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Free books to AALL attendees

Attendees at AALL are getting some free titles from Aspatore Books and West, just for stopping by the West Print/CD booth.

The books, appropriately, are two Aspatore titles for law firm and academic librarians: The Changing Role of Academic Law Librarianship: Leading Librarians on Teaching Legal Research Skills, Responding to Emerging Technologies, and Adapting to Changing Trends (Inside the Minds).

And The Changing Role of Law Firm Librarianship: Leading Librarians on Developing Budgets, Evaluating Resources, and Responding to the Expanding Role of the Law Firm Library (Inside the Minds).

Both books feature multiple authors and address the ongoing transition of the law librarian profession as a whole.

Aspatore Books offers more than 4,000 expert authors, addressing legal and business strategies for numerous topics, including intellectual property, bankruptcy, human resources, insurance and venture capital.

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Photos posted from AALL

We’ve posted a few photos from AALL, inside the Oregon Convention Center, on our Flickr page, including some pictures of the West booth area in the exhibit hall, with its camping theme (and giant Mt. Hood poster!):

We’ll be adding to our Flickr page through Tuesday.

You can also see photos taken by AALL attendees on this Flickr group page and on The Daily Rose blog.

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West town hall goes to school on legal research, writing

New lawyers spend much of their time doing legal research. Yet librarians and law firm partners agree that new graduates commonly leave law school without the research and writing skills needed to be successful in a law firm environment.

The challenge this poses to law firms, law schools and legal information providers took center stage on Saturday, July 12 here at AALL in Portland at the West town hall meeting, “Partnership & Solutions for Preparing Job-Ready Attorneys.”

The town hall, moderated by Karl Gruben from the St. Thomas University School of Law in Florida, featured a blue-ribbon panel of academic and law firm librarians who explored the challenge law schools face in squeezing research and writing coursework into an already-packed class schedule.

Gruben noted that research accounts for only one percent of law school coursework; this was reinforced by law professor Arthur Miller, who in pre-recorded video remarks decried the gap between what’s taught and what’s needed in that first job.

Research and writing, Miller said in the video, are “crowded out”, and don’t receive the focus and seriousness they should be afforded in law school.

The Town Hall also looked at a unique partnership between West and the law firm Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP that is providing new associates with comprehensive legal research training, including when and how to use print and online resources most effectively.

Monice Kaczorowski, head of Neal Gerber’s competitive intelligence unit and law firm litigation partner Chris Mickus said this training has helped new Neal Gerber associates more efficiently use all of the firm’s research materials. There needs to be more emphasis on research “nuts and bolts”, and new associates need to know how to use the library and its print resources before jumping to online databases, Mickus said.

West produced a white paper to address the key issues in the discussion in the town hall.

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