Listening to former Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden on CBS Sunday Morning, as she discussed with Robert Costa how libraries nationwide are facing pressure over how they operate and what they keep on their shelves, I couldn’t help but think of law firms—facing pressure to move away from true legal publishing toward legal publishing primarily for marketing—a shift that increasingly results in their work being excluded from the libraries of secondary law.
Ironically, this absence diminishes their authority—not just in the eyes of legal researchers, but also in how large language models and AI systems assess and surface trusted legal commentary.
Hayden acknowledged fellow librarians responding to her dismissal by the White House,
…[I]t’s so humbling to have that outpouring of support. But what is really, I think, part of this feeling is that it’s part of a larger seeming effort to diminish opportunities for the general public to have free access to information and inspiration. We like to say as librarians, free people read freely. And so there’s been an effort recently to quench that.
Legal publishing, traditionally, has been the editorial and systematic publication of primary and secondary legal materials—designed to inform legal professionals, support legal research, and promote public understanding of the law.
Included in this secondary law has been the commentary and analysis by lawyer subject matter experts to support legal research, preserve the development of the law and provide public access to the law.
Most law firms today continue to publish, but the primary purpose has shifted from contributing to legal discourse to supporting marketing objectives. Rather than aiming to participate in the development of secondary law, much of this publishing now serves visibility.
Hayden says, libraries serve as “…[I]nstitutions in every community that allow anyone to come in and access knowledge.”
As she laments what libraries keep on their shelves, it seems a shame that lawyers and law firms move from the emphasis of their legal publishing contributing to the public good to publishing for marketing.
No question that publishing by lawyers and law firms, in many cases, represents sound legal insight and commentary of value to the public, measuring its value, first, by its marketing effectiveness has left such publishing on the outside looking in at libraries of secondary law.
That’s a shame for those lawyers and legal professionals who publish, and the public.