Carpmaels & Ransford
Library and Information Services Manager
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(available on a full-time or part-time basis, with working patterns of three to five days per week considered)
We are a leading European intellectual property firm, acting for many of the world’s most innovative and successful companies. Our specialist teams are led by practitioners who have been at the forefront of the industry for years, acting in landmark cases before the EPO, UPC and the national courts of Europe.
We hire talented and passionate people who think creatively and enjoy a challenge. Working collaboratively, we share our knowledge and experience across teams, actively learning from each other in a friendly and sociable environment.
We are passionate about creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. Diversity of thought is vital to our business; it’s how we approach challenges differently and offer our clients creative and original solutions. Through our work with organisations such as IP Inclusive, Stonewall and Business in the Community via the Race at Work Charter, we are putting the right steps in place to make sure that all our people feel supported and empowered to be themselves. Further information on our commitment to diversity and inclusion is available on our website.
At Carpmaels, we value a healthy work/life balance and are supportive of agile and hybrid working, while also striving to maintain our much-loved collegiate and friendly culture. We are happy to discuss individual candidate requirements during the recruitment process.
We run regular wellbeing events in addition to the large number of clubs and social activities that are available to everyone at the firm. We are also enthusiastic supporters of our local community through partnerships with the Social Mobility Foundation and Holborn Community Association.
What you can expect as a Library and Information Services Manager
This is an exciting opportunity to join our Knowledge team. The team comprises a Director of Knowledge, two Senior Knowledge Lawyers supporting Litigation and the Patent Attorneys and four Knowledge Paralegals. You will be responsible for providing the library and information service to the firm working with all members of the Knowledge Team. This includes legal and patent research support, maintaining case trackers, managing online information services and hard copy resources, document supply of scientific and technical literature, supporting Technical Assistants with books and resources required for their studies, current awareness and monitoring, new joiner inductions and joiner and leaver processes. As a leading IP firm, we work across cutting edge scientific, engineering and technology sectors as well as requiring legal information resources, so this is a unique opportunity requiring a blend of knowledge across both technical and legal sources. This is a pivotal role and will involve a high level of interaction with partners and fee earners.
Key Responsibilities
- Promote good knowledge and information practices across the firm to ensure excellent service provision and value for money.
- Understand the information needs of our Litigators, Patent Attorneys and Trade Mark Attorneys and ensure our information services are relevant, accessible and well-used.
- Develop a good working relationship with fee earners by being responsive to requests and being proactive where opportunities to develop services arise.
- Work effectively with other members of the Knowledge Team providing library and information expertise where needed and providing advice and assistance to Knowledge Paralegals on how to go about some areas of research.
- Nurture strong relationships with vendors and suppliers.
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Managing Online Services
- Identify new information products that may be of interest, undertake trials, gather feedback and promote to relevant users.
- Negotiate subscriptions for new resources and renewals to ensure we have what we need at the best price.
- Oversee the administration of contracts for resources ensuring they meet our needs.
- Nurture strong vendor relationships.
- Keep a track on expenditure making suggestions where savings could be made.
Research
- Assist fee earners and address novel and challenging research and information requests, conducting research as required, and work with document delivery suppliers to ensure provision of technical literature on request.
Case Trackers
- Maintain trackers of relevant cases for our Patent Attorneys in the areas of Battery Technology and AI & Software.
Learning & Development
- Provide help and support to fee earners with the use of our information services and tools, including working with suppliers to provide training.
- Meeting new fee earners to raise awareness of the Knowledge Team and resources and taking part in inductions for new Technical Assistants (Trainee Patent Attorneys).
- Work with the Learning & Development Department to understand the study resources needed by the Technical Assistants and ensure they are provided in a timely manner.
Current Awareness
- Maintain high level of current awareness of industry trends in and new vendors of research services and the legal profession and attend relevant events and leverage industry contacts and peers.
- Set up and monitor current awareness alerts from our information resources and third-party news aggregator, Manzama.
Intranet
- Manage parts of our intranet relevant to E-Resources, Document Supply and Current Awareness.
Project Work
- Supporting firmwide projects that require information management expertise, including supporting the firm’s adoption of AI by developing training, guidance and best-practice materials that help colleagues use AI research tools effectively and critically. Act as a point of contact for AI related information queries, promoting good prompting practice, source verification and awareness of the limitations of generative tools.
Compliance
- Ensure the firm remains compliant by managing relevant copyright licences.
Collection Management
- Manage our small hard copy collection of print scientific, technical and legal textbooks.
Key attributes
- A self-starting, confident and self-assured individual
- A team player who builds effective working relationships at all levels, recognised and respected by fee earners, knowledge colleagues, and others
- Have strong networking skills and the ability to create and maintain working relationships both internally and externally and identify and act on opportunities for collaboration
- Experience of using current awareness tools desirable
- Experience of legal research databases desirable
- Be a champion across the firm for the capabilities of research and information services
Qualifications And Background
The ideal candidate would be educated to degree or post graduate level, preferably in an information related discipline, and/or have previous experience working in a professional services, science and technology or other knowledge business in a similar role. This is not essential, however, and we would welcome candidates from other backgrounds with varied experience.
The recruitment process
Applicants can expect a welcoming two-way interview process, where there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions about the opportunity and to discover more about life at the firm.
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We’re committed to ensuring all candidates are treated equally and fairly, allowing them to perform at their best during the recruitment process.
If you have a disability, if you're neurodivergent, or if you have a condition that you believe may affect your performance during our recruitment process, we encourage you to share your requirements for any adjustments in the relevant section of our application form, or via your recruitment agency. A member of our recruitment team will be in touch to discuss how best we can support you during each stage of the process.
What We Offer
We offer a competitive benefits package that currently includes the following:
- 25 days’ holiday, increasing by 1 day per year up to our maximum of 28 days.
- Employer pension contribution of 5% in your first year, with a minimum 3% employee contribution, increasing to 10% employer contribution after one year’s service.
- Holiday buy scheme, with the option to purchase up to 5 additional days.
- Holiday bonus, starting at £400 per year, increasing each year up to a maximum of £2,000.
- Private medical insurance via Bupa, where you’ll be eligible to join the month following your start date. You will also have the option to add dependants, subject to a monthly cost.
- Free confidential access to 24/7 medical, mental, legal and financial wellbeing support via Health Assured and WeCare from your first day of employment.
- Access to internal Mental Health First Aiders, all of whom have completed the Mental Health First Aid England accredited training programme and champion wellbeing across the firm.
- Life assurance of 4x your base salary.
- Income protection, with cover for up to 5 years and compensating for up to 75% of your base salary.
- Cycle2Work scheme.
- Season ticket loan.
- Access to Payroll Giving or Give As You Earn (GAYE) which allows you to donate to charity through your monthly pay.
- We’re passionate about the benefits of corporate volunteering and offer all employees 1 paid volunteer day per year.
We’re very proud of our collegiate culture and the value that working together brings. Through our commitment to enabling everyone to do their best work, we offer a range of family and life-friendly policies.
- This includes competitive enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, surrogacy and shared parental leave schemes, if you’ve been with us for at least 26 weeks. Furthermore, our fertility policy aims to assist employees with both the logistical and emotional aspects of undergoing fertility treatment. This includes paid leave of up to five days for fertility treatment.
We also recognise the needs of balancing home life around the requirements of your role. Depending on the work you do and your team, we offer informal arrangements such as hybrid and agile working, as well as more formal arrangements such as flexible hours and part-time working. We’re very happy to discuss flexible and life-friendly working options during the recruitment process and upon joining us.
We are proud of our inclusive culture where individual differences are celebrated, and we are committed to providing equal opportunities to all employees and job applicants. We do not tolerate discrimination either directly or indirectly on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital or civil partnership status, age, disability, pregnancy and maternity, or any other characteristic protected by law. Our approach is embodied in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy
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