One of the highlights of the BIALL Conference is the handing out of awards at the Thursday evening dinner. Here's a full rundown of this year's worthy winners
BIALL SUPPLIER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024
John Sinkins, Danielle McCay, Julie Christmas (BIALL President), Abbie Sinkins, Jason Crimp, Rob Hooton
The BIALL Supplier of the Year Award 2024 was awarded to Wildy & Sons. This award aims to reward outstanding best practice by a supplier or a publisher in the field of legal information. This very worthy winner has excelled consistently, having previously won the award a record six times, including the inaugural Supplier of the Year Award in 2005.
Here are some of the comments from this year's nominations:
• “Consistently provides an excellent and helpful service.”
• “The team are always responsive and friendly.”
• “Quick to share their knowledge and expertise with the publishers.”
• “Everything about them is first rate – the customer service, staff, turnaround time, attention to detail, reliability, accuracy, quality.”
• “Highest standards all around.”
• “Always very prompt to provide what is needed.”
• “They will track down titles that are not on their catalogue.”
• “There are never any supply problems.”
• “The team consistently provide an excellent service and urgent orders are often received within a 24 hour period.”
• “The ‘in stock’ collection / courier service is always of great help especially if books are needed urgently.”
The other suppliers nominated were: Bailey Solutions; Bloomsbury; Clarus Press; FormEvo; FromCounsel; The Knowledge Business; Prenax and Thomson Reuters.
LEXISNEXIS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE 2024
Matthew Leopold (Lexis), Heleanna Lenti (Withers), Julie Christmas (BIALL President)
Withers LLP was announced as the winner of the LexisNexis Award. This award aims to recognise, celebrate and reward the dedicated performance and outstanding service given by legal information services. It recognises the value and importance of dedicated teamwork within our sector and showcases the achievements of a team who have implemented a new service, or made changes to an existing one.
This year's winner comprises a team of 13 spread across the globe from the US to Asia. They vary in terms of seniority and specialism, but share an incredible ability to work together as a global team to deliver the best possible service to the firm and its clients.
One of the key strengths of the winning team's collaboration is the way that they have built rapport across the regions. Knowledge is shared through weekly team calls, which alternate between US and APAC-friendly times so that everyone can participate, while regional managers have a monthly meeting. On the social side there is a weekly informal catch-up between the US and UK teams, a global WhatsApp group for sharing pictures and updates, and even a team Spotify playlist. Recently, the UK and US teams had their first meeting in virtual reality using headsets provided by the firm, a great way for everyone to connect and really feel like they were in the room together.
By building strong ties the global team are able to work together in ways that bring real benefits to the firm. They regularly collaborate to answer legal research or business development enquiries, manage resources effectively across regions, or share information about legal tech products, including best practice and user experience.
In 2022 the team at Withers LLP started a two-year project to implement a library catalogue that worked for the firm globally, rather than the previous London-centric one. The project involved collaboration across the team for the entire project.
Communication was the absolute key to the project's success, from supplier selection right through to implementation and training. The internal project manager said: “Working with the exceptionally professional and productive library team was an absolute delight. Despite working in different time zones their seamless coordination and communication ensured smooth workflow and successful outcomes. They really made my job as PM the easiest it could be.”
WILDY BIALL LAW LIBRARIAN OF THE YEAR 2024
John Sinkins (Wildy), Jackie Hanes, Julie Christmas (BIALL President)
Jackie Hanes was the winner of this year's Wildy BIALL Law Librarian of the Year award.
This award is presented to an individual legal information professional who has made a significant contribution to the work of BIALL and / or the legal information world, either in the UK, Ireland or overseas.
This year's recipient has played a vital role in BIALL for many years, taking on various roles, as well as sharing her knowledge through conference presentations and special interest group participation.
First as a member of the Professional Development Committee (PDC) and then its Chair, Jackie was involved in planning and organising short courses and social events for BIALL members, as well as working on BIALL's legal information literacy statement and professional skills framework.
Moving on from PDC, Jackie took on the role of Honorary Treasurer, where her diligence and strong organisation skills were clearly demonstrated. She then moved over to Conference Finance Officer, stepping down last year for a well-earned rest.
Away from BIALL, Jackie has built a successful career in the higher and legal education sector, spending 10 years at the College of Law, before moving on to the University of Leicester, where she took on a growing number of other subjects including history, archaeology, English, politics and international relations. In 2022 she moved to the University of Warwick as a Research and Academic Support Librarian for economics and law, where she also serves as research support lead for the academic librarian team. Her extensive experience in the academic sector has made her a valuable contributor to the BIALL Academic Special Interest Group (SIG), as well as to the annual conference.
BIALL WALLACE BREEM AWARD 2024
Julie Christmas (BIALL President), Dunstan Speight(Librarian) Carolyn Rampling (Senior Research Librarian) and Matthew Bland (Research Librarian)
The Wallace Breem Memorial Award was presented to the Library and Archive team at Lincoln's Inn Library. This prestigious award was inaugurated in 1990 in memory of Wallace Breem, former librarian of the Inner Temple Library and a founder member of BIALL who, at various times, held the offices of Secretary, Treasurer, Chairman, Vice-President and President.
Sponsored by the Inner Temple and BIALL, the award is presented every two years and aims to recognise valuable contributions to law librarianship, or to provide financial assistance for special research or other projects.
This year's winner was nominated for its Rare Books and Manuscripts Online website: https://archives.lincolnsinn.org.uk
The object of this website is to create a digital version of many of the unique items in the library's collection, further supporting the work of practising lawyers and legal historians, as well as improving access to the wider public.
Launched in 2022 to mark the organisation's 600th anniversary, early content included the Black Books, minutes of the organisation dating back to 1422 containing important information about the careers of many leading barristers and judges over the centuries, the somewhat chequered history of legal education and much else besides.
The Law Reports and Case Papers section makes available many cases which have never appeared in published reports, as well as providing contemporary written records of cases which differ from the published reports in important respects. The library's manuscripts of Somerset's Case, 1772 (a key case in the gradual abolition of slavery) and Entick v. Carrington, 1765 (a landmark decision establishing the civil liberties of individuals and limiting the scope of executive power) both demonstrate how 18th century law reporters were not averse to “improving” what the judges said in court. Such manuscripts are important sources for legal historians, but also for practitioners who are relying on older precedents.
The documents available so far give an idea of the rich collection of material which can ultimately be made available. The project will now look at digitising further items and promoting this important collection to users wherever they are based.
BIALL ACCOUNT MANAGER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024
Julie Christmas (BIALL President), Stuart Greenhill (Lexis) on behalf of Donogh Hurley
Donogh Hurley of LexisNexis won the BIALL Account Manager of the Year Award. This award seeks to recognise an individual working for a supplier who has gone the extra mile, or someone who provides a consistently good service. Judging by the comments in the nominations, this year's recipient has certainly done this. These included:
• “He is distinguished as one of a tiny number of genuine relationship managers.”
• “He listens carefully to priorities and issues and works hard across his organisation to develop solutions.”
• “He takes genuine ownership of the account and works hard to see things through to a satisfactory resolution.”
• “It feels like we've got a real advocate on the other side of the table.”
• “Strategic and forward looking, he has taken the time to properly understand our business, meaning we're driving even more value out of our relationship with this supplier. He balances this with being properly across the detail where it matters. That combined with diligence, excellent communication and proactivity mean we collaborate effectively and feel very well supported.”
• “He has been brilliant during a challenging year where we not only migrated to a new platform but also introduced other products from this supplier.”
The other Account Managers nominated were: Cameron Gough (Kluwer Law International); Mark Hobson (Prenax); Rob Hooton (Wildy & Sons Ltd); Danielle McCay (Wildy & Sons Ltd); Kathryn Mills (Thomson Reuters); Farina Sharif (LexisNexis) and Gavin Sheridan (Vizlegal).
BIALL STUDENT AWARD 2024
Julie Christmas (BIALL President), Emily Peart
The BIALL Student Award was presented to Emily Peart, who is studying for an MA in Library and Information Studies at University College London.
This award is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate library school students on a CILIP / LAI accredited course. It aims to recognise and encourage new entrants to the profession and help them explore the wide range of legal information sectors available.
This year's winner has produced a study of Fee-Earner Engagement with Library Created Training Resources at a Large Corporate Law Firm. In this essay she highlights the vital importance of library and information staff understanding the training needs of their users, so that relevant training sessions and materials can be provided. It includes the results and analysis of an online survey asking how well library users engaged with existing materials available on their intranet pages and whether additional training was required. In addition, there is a discussion of current literature on this topic with references from professional, academic and legal sources.
