In good and bad times, all firms want and need to perform business-development activities. In some firms, there is a business-development support department and in others, business development is up to the attorneys. Regardless of the structure of a firm’s business-development activities, administrative departments need to work with attorneys to present the best possible face when the attorney steps in front of a potential client to make a pitch. Of these departments, the librarian in the library/information services department is a critical piece.
Due to the explosion of information sources, librarians cannot be pushed to the side in business-development endeavors. They are the key to gleaning critical information that will make attorneys shine during their presentations. To this end, librarians will continually do their own public relations about sources and services in order to teach attorneys to think of the information services department as a resource for business development. If the information services department has never done this type of work before, part of the challenge will be getting people to think of librarians in a new way.
