Mayer Brown LLP

We have been using Liberty for 10 years and find the customer support really helpful.

Ani Dragomirova, Catalog & Library Services Specialist, Chicago IL

Mayer Brown was founded in 1881 in Chicago. The firm now operates out of offices across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and is regularly ranked among leading global law firms. With approximately 1,500 lawyers worldwide, Mayer Brown assists clients with their most complex and demanding legal and business challenges. The firm serves many of the world’s largest companies in areas including banking and finance; corporate and securities; litigation and dispute resolution; antitrust and competition; US Supreme Court and appellate matters; employment and benefits; environmental; financial services regulatory and enforcement; government and global trade; intellectual property; real estate; tax; restructuring, bankruptcy and insolvency; and wealth management.

Mayer Brown LLP, Chicago

A busy library for a major law firm

The busy main library for the United States is managed by a team of five, located at Mayer Brown’s headquarters in Chicago. In addition there are six branch libraries in other US cities, each with one or two support staff.

Catalog & Library Services Specialist, Ani Dragomirova, works out of Mayer Brown’s main library and says the library provides multiple services for Mayer Brown staff.

We assist with legal, business and other research by providing relevant information and materials and/or guidance on resources available and specific to their needs.

The library also provides training on existing or new databases and products, and manages the firm’s comprehensive resource collection, which includes journals, law reports and books.

While our print holdings have been reduced over the last two years, we are constantly expanding our digital collection and adding more electronic resources and databases.

Use of Liberty (Knowledge, Content and Library Management Solution)

Mayer Brown has been using Liberty in its US libraries since 2004.

As the cataloguer, Ani uses Liberty to organize Mayer Brown’s multitude of resources in all available formats so attorneys can efficiently search, locate and retrieve the material they need.

I also upload materials in PDF format, which users can locate and use immediately,

Ani said.

Hard copy items are barcoded, which makes it easy to check them out using the circulation desk and self-circulation provides a quick and convenient option for Mayer Brown staff.

We have self-circulation on our Intranet page so attorneys have the option to check out materials from their own offices.

Ani really likes the Lists feature in Liberty and uses it for multiple purposes.

I really like the Lists feature and use it to compile lists of resources by topic and have them available in Search. I have also posted links to these Lists on our Intranet site and really like that it has the option to add an image.

Liberty also allows the team at Mayer Brown to customize many features to serve their specific requirements. For example, they were able to customize a bibliographic type to keep track of materials borrowed via inter-library loan.

Our inter-library loans requirements were quite simple so rather than using the ILL module we created a solution which specifically meets our needs.

Focus on customer service and growth

Ani said they selected Liberty for Mayer Brown because it was oriented toward special libraries and could meet their specific information needs. In addition, reliability, efficiency and strong customer support were vital.

We have been using Liberty for 10 years and find the customer support really helpful. Responses are timely and efficient and it’s great that Softlink targets the specific needs of its customers

The web-based user meetings also give Ani and the team at Mayer Brown the opportunity to connect with the Liberty community and learn more.

I like the web-based user meetings because there is always something new to learn.

Liberty supports many of the multiple services the library team provides across Mayer Brown’s US Offices, helps them organize their vital research resources and meets their growing information needs.

Our library will continue developing and moving toward a more digital environment and we hope to utilize Liberty’s capabilities even further.