Should Law Librarians Have a Law Degree?
The answer may surprise you
Let’s start with a story.
From 2006 to 2009, I worked as the public services librarian at a law school. An instructor there who taught legal research and writing wanted me to help her create a new assignment. Claudia (not her real name) planned to give all the students the same set of facts and split them into plaintiffs and defendants. Each student would write an appellate brief for their side and later argue the case before a panel of “judges” consisting of law school faculty.
The “facts” involved a student who had won a college scholarship and later had that scholarship revoked due to something the student allegedly did. Not getting the scholarship might mean not going to college, which could mean not becoming a doctor, lawyer, or other high-wage earner. In that instance, the school might have unfairly deprived a student of the chance to start a career.
The legal term for this is interference, which can be negligent (accidental) or tortious (intentional). The question for the students, then, was whether the school committed tortious interference with a business relationship by denying a student a scholarship. My job was to find actual North Carolina cases of this type that Claudia could give to the students, who would rely on them to write their…
