Alternative career path: law librarian Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm wondering whether any forum users are law librarians or personally know any and could describe the day to day responsibilities of a law librarian in an academic setting, as well as whether they like their job.

I've been in a civil lit position for two years after clerking at the fed district level for a year and am strongly considering this is a career. I love legal research but otherwise hate litigation. I'm not an adversarial person and abhor the stresses of this profession. Being in an academic environment is intriguing, as is the possibility of one day teaching legal research. I'm applying for masters in library science programs soon. But I want to continue to do my due dilligence to make sure I would enjoy this path.

Thanks

[gasfard]

I interacted with law librarians a lot since I worked as a research assistant and needed help from them pretty often. They all seemed really happy with their jobs; one even was a former partner at a law firm. They had their specialties (e.g. intl law, finance, etc.), took turns at the Q&A desk throughout the day, and answered questions via email.

[BlackAndOrange84]

I think you should look at the number of law librarian jobs that come open each year compared to the number of graduates with law librarian degrees. As I understand, it's a pretty rough job market out there for them.

[Bodhicaryavatara]

What are entry-level salaries like for academic law librarians? How is the work-life balance?

[RedPurpleBlue]

What are entry-level salaries like for academic law librarians? How is the work-life balance?

From what I've heard and seen, work-life balance seems to be great. It's for the most part a 9-5 type of a job at the non-administrative levels.

For salaries, here is the salary survey from 2013. I'm too lazy to find a pdf of the 2017 one, but you can go to page 61/124 of the PDF (labeled S-3 in the document) to find salaries for law librarians in the academic space.

If you're too lazy to open the document and scroll down, the TL;DR is that the median in academic law libraries ranges from $50 to $70k depending on the type of librarian, $75k for supervisory librarians, $90k for Associate/Deputy/Assistant Director, and $160k for Director/Chief Librarian.

[QContinuum]

I think you should look at the number of law librarian jobs that come open each year compared to the number of graduates with law librarian degrees. As I understand, it's a pretty rough job market out there for them.

On a related note, I'd recommend trying to talk to a few law librarians and asking them how they entered the field. (Preferably more junior librarians, as the field and its routes of entry may have evolved over time.) I have no clue how it works, but I wouldn't recommend simply assuming that you'd be able to land a full-time position straight out of a MLS program.

[nixy]

People actually do get hired directly out of MLS programs; it’s not like legal academia where there’s an expectation of practice experience (if only a couple of years). The issue is more that there aren’t a lot of jobs. (Source: I know a bunch of librarians.)

[RedPurpleBlue]

People actually do get hired directly out of MLS programs; it’s not like legal academia where there’s an expectation of practice experience (if only a couple of years). The issue is more that there aren’t a lot of jobs. (Source: I know a bunch of librarians.)

That is not a current expectation of legal academia.

[nixy]

People actually do get hired directly out of MLS programs; it’s not like legal academia where there’s an expectation of practice experience (if only a couple of years). The issue is more that there aren’t a lot of jobs. (Source: I know a bunch of librarians.)

That is not a current expectation of legal academia.

That’s fair - it’s an outdated one (the path used to be work for a couple of years, not so common now), in that now you go off and try to be a Climenko or get a VAP for a couple of years or do a PhD because the odds of getting a law prof job out of your JD are exceedingly low. But that’s the only reason I could think of that someone would think you can’t get a librarian job right out of the MLS. (Unless that was just expounding on the lack of jobs? Because assuming job openings, the route of entry into a law librarian job is in fact JD —> MLS —> library job.)