NZLLA Careers

The purpose of the Career section of the NZLLA website is to:

• provide information for individuals wishing to enter a career in a legal information/legal library role
• give members another platform to advertise their job listings

The New Zealand Legal Information Professional

The New Zealand Legal Information Professional typically works in the following areas of law:

• Academic law schools
• Chambers
• Courts
• Professional services firms such as PwC or Deloitte
• Government departments and Independent Crown Entities
• Law firms
• Law Society Libraries
• Parliament
  

Throughout their career, they may work in one of these fields, or may move around and experience different areas of law. Their skills are transferrable between the New Zealand sectors. Some have law degrees, many have information or records management degrees (undergraduate or post graduate) and some are working towards a qualification or have worked in the industry for a very long period of time, essentially learning on the job (this is more rare of late).

Entry level can be through a library assistant role and can be in any library (does not necessarily mean they have to work in a law library if they have yet to quality). This gives the individual a chance to test whether working in a library is a career they wish to pursue before embarking on expensive tertiary qualifications. Many organisations hire legal students in their library assistant roles as this gives the students excellent practical experiences in legal research which is invaluable once they qualify.

Legal information professionals find information and material from a variety of authoritative sources (i.e. not Google or Wikipedia!). They are often called upon to assess and test information resources an organisation wishes to purchase. They are often viewed as vital to their organisations as they have the ability to adapt and change to new technology, can assess systems for accuracy of the content, in fact they often work with legal publishers to improve searching capabilities or point out inaccuracies in content.

The New Zealand legal information professional's daily tasks are varied and often involve possessing a number of skills: a working knowledge of IT, exceptional knowledge of current affairs, people and communication skills and an interest in the law (if they don't have an interest at the onset of their careers, they definitely gain an interest along the way). Management skills are also a bonus especially with regard to any career progression.