Let me preface these remarks by saying that I agree with everything that
has been said by PeterK, BillD, PatrickC, BobD, BruceW and others who
have weighed in on this subject. But let me do a little more devil's
advocating before we wrap up this topic.

Bob Dalton wrote:  "I may be dense, but I believe that the legal
profession is no different from a normal corporation, partnership, etc.,
. . . I believe a they still have to register in the state as a
corporation, etc., and are subject to the same laws as any other
corporation for any taxes or legal mandate they are exposed to, i.e.,
OSHA, accounting, HR regulations/legal citations and if they
representing companies that are
regulated by the SEC and/or come under the Sarbanes-Oxley act.  The only
difference I can see is the actual legal records of the clients they
represent and even those may be disposed under Sarbanes-Oxley.  The
management of the actual legal records may be unique but those cited
above that are mandated by law are not."

Bob, I wouldn't say you're being dense, but you're uninformed about how
the law business works.  Yes, of course, law firms are businesses and
they generate standard, typical business records.  But lawyers don't
give a hoot about how these records are managed, and the records
personnel who work in law firms are not paid to manage them.  Of course
we professional managers would like this not to be so, but the
administrative records produced by lawyers in the firm environment will
always be relegated to the back burner.  That's just the way it is.  No
sense in pretending any different.

Patrick Cunningham wrote:  "You don't know what you're going to be doing
next year or even five years down the road. If your present job dries
up, don't limit yourself to the industry (or the role) where you are.
Wouldn't you rather go to a job interview where you can say, "Well, I've
never directly managed those records, but here are the top three records
issues that I'm aware of in this industry." Or, "Instant messaging was
never used in my former company, but if you consider IM to be a record,
here's a couple strategies to deal with it." Breadth of knowledge is
just as important as depth of knowledge."

I agree in theory; personally, I'm a huge proponent (and practitioner)
of positioning oneself to be as marketable as possible. But, again,
let's be realistic.  When you've worked in a specialty for 10+ years,
it's very difficult, if not impossible, to switch gears and obtain a
comparable position in a different specialty (comparable being the key
word).  If I worked for years as a records manager in an educational
institution, for example, all the ARMA conferences I went to over the
years wouldn't help me get a new job in a law firm. In the scenario
Patrick describes -- where all of a sudden, after many years of being a
specialist, you find yourself out of a job and looking for work --
you'll most likely be competing with many other records managers who are
applying for the same jobs you are applying for, many of whom have
already worked in the specialty that you have no experience in.  It's
the same in librarianship as it is in RM; law librarians tend to remain
law librarians throughout their careers.  They don't just pick up and
become medical librarians.  If you tell me that this isn't the case in
other industries, I'll believe you, but, from my experience, it is the
case in the legal industry.

Ok, that's it for a cold, rainy Friday night in Los Angeles.  Have a
good weekend, everyone!

--Lee

Lee R. Nemchek MLS, CRM
Information Resources Manager
Morrison & Foerster LLP
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(213) 892-5359


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