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Is the law sector dripping talent?

The latest issue of the Library & Information Gazette has an interesting piece on how the recent outsourcing of Library services by Osborne Clarke, Beachcroft and TLT solicitors may have a profound impact on the way legal information professionals work.

Called "Is the law sector dripping talent?" the article, which contains comments from Kate Stanfield, Victoria Jannetta, Joanna Hudson and Nicola Franklin, argues that although the firms/Integreon haven't had to make redundancies, there will surely be a saturation point where Integreon wont be able to support Information Professionals working at the outsourced company.

I'd absolutely agree with this and sad as it is to say it doesn't take 3 people to negotiate a contract for an electronic subscription that only one "company" is going to use so there will no doubt be a tipping point where those individuals previously employed by the outsourced "company" wont be required. I'm not going to guess when that will be, but you don't have to be a psychic to predict that a London based law firm will sooner or later follow these regional law firms down the outsourcing route.

For those individuals currently working for Integreon as the article says "...working for an outsourced service is better than having no job at all..." but this might change if and when the job market improves and more roles start to appear. The big question is what does this mean for the future of the legal sector? I know at least three individuals who have left the legal sector either because they've been made redundant or because they wanted a change of scene. Is this something we're going to see more of, certainly if more and more firms outsource their library services. Personally I cant think of a better sector to work in and hope to do so for the forseeable future.

Full post as published by LI Issues on January 28, 2010 (boomark / email).