In Brief: The Columbus Bar Blawg

by Bradley W. Miller, Burton Law LLC

This is a follow-up to my previous post on eBooks in the legal practice.

The American Lawyer recently investigated eBook use in Am Law 200 firms in its eleventh annual survey of law firm library directors. A summary of the results of the survey were presented in this article.

Despite the benefits of eBooks, apparently traditional bound books are not going away without a fight. According to the survey, only 24% of the firm libraries surveyed are buying eBooks for lawyers. The culprit? Licensing and pay models based on how the vendors want to sell rather than how attorneys and firms want to use eBooks. Besides the complexity
of volume licensing agreements, eBooks are typically an additional cost for those firms already subscribing to print or online versions. These two factors are causing many firms to take a wait-and-see approach to adding eBooks to their libraries.

Do you agree with the results of the survey, and do you think they apply to small and medium-sized firms? Does your firm use eBooks? What difficulties have you found in trying to implement them into your practice?