The ARK Group’s annual event will be held November 6-7 in New York City. Ahead of this year’s event, ARK caught up with John J. DiGilio, firmwide director of library services, Sidley Austin, who will serve as conference chair and speaker, to pick his brain on his more than 25 years of experience in the industry.

DiGilio has worn different hats throughout his career as a law librarian. He’s worked in academia, law firms of different sizes, vendors, and as a consultant. In his current role overseeing Sidley Austin’s global library services suite, he has experienced the evolution of the law firm library industry firsthand. And it’s been one of significant changes, he says. Here are his reflections and insights ahead of Law Firm Libraries 2024:

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Given your expertise and experience in the industry, what would you say should be legal librarians and law firm professional’s primary focuses or priorities right now?

A: The area I think everybody needs to keep their eyes on is efficiencies. I say that to encompass AI and all the new technology that is to come. With technology constantly changing, we're always hitting attorneys and others with something else they can use.

And there's often a lot of hype, which there is right now. I think we still spend more time talking about whose jobs it's going to take away than we do spending time looking at the actual potential. So, when I talk about efficiencies today, it's helping attorneys and others understand that in this vast universe of information that is now available, there are ways to bring it into your workflow to make it work for you to benefit the firm. And that's benefitting the clients…But no matter how much information is available, you're always going to have those traditional concerns of, accuracy, authenticity, and provenance.

Q: In this era of AI, what do you see as the greatest advantages to implementing generative AI? And on the flipside, what are the key pitfalls firms need to be aware of?

A: What AI has to offer most right now is efficiency. You can use AI to pick away a lot of what I will call ‘busy work,’ the things that take your focus away from directly working on the issues at hand for your clients.

But the pitfall is you still must understand that's not where it ends. You can't just take that answer or that output and run. Especially as an attorney, you have a duty to your client to take the time to look at the summary that came out and ask the questions of yourself. What else do I need to look at here? How do I verify this information?

So, this idea that it's just going to come in and solve these other problems and give you the answer, I think that's still the pitfall. People are looking at it as something that's going to provide answers. What it’s really doing is it's providing a new level of support to help you get to those conclusions.

That's where information professionals are going to come in. The bottom line is that you should never take something like that and just rely on it. You have to expect that there are going to be issues to be cleaned up and, in many ways, that's just like traditional research where you would have gotten something and then needed to verify everything.

Q: You will be presenting a session on evaluating and implementing generative AI tools. Can you share a bit about the session and what you hope attendees will walk away with?

A: We hope to really look at the reality and practicality, if you will, of AI as it exists right now, showing people that there is a place for it and, at the same time, there is opportunity for law librarians and information professionals to help determine where AI lands in the greater legal industry.

Emerging roles for librarians and information professionals in firms is, of course, a big part of this discussion. What are their firms going to do with AI and how?

They need to be there at the table when these decisions are being made. They need to be part of that discussion, and they need to help guide the application of AI. So that's going to be the message: grab this bull by the horns and get in there and show the firm what it can do and why you are integral to that process.

DiGilio will present the session, Evaluating and Implementing Generative AI Tools, alongside Maureen Rossi, director of library and research services, Troutman Pepper, on Wednesday, November 6, the first day of the conference.

Q: Why do you think this conference is important for legal librarians and law firm professionals?

A: It is integral, not just important, but integral. One of the things that I have loved about this profession for a very long time is the fact that law librarians like to share with one another. Information professionals have never been shy about sharing what it is that they've learned and talking about their own experiences.

When I was starting in this industry, that sharing and camaraderie were part of what inspired me to get more and more involved. I always had mentors, and I looked forward to becoming a mentor myself one day. I think in a world where so much has now gone virtual and so many of our connections are done virtually, having something like this that gives us the chance to actually get together and not just have a quick discussion is beyond value. When we are physically there together, there's time for real serendipity and to chat in the hallways or over meals. Making these types of in-person connections, I think is more meaningful than anything we can do electronically.

Law Firm Libraries 2024 will be held in New York City on November 6-7. For more information on the conference, including the full agenda, list of speakers, and registration information, click here.