Reading Time: 5 minutes
A colleague was in town and attending ABA Techshow so I swung by McCormick Place to see them. It’s been awhile and the Expo pass is free (something I will keep in mind next year). I walked over to the Metra and hopped on the train to the conference site. As
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Stay Clean at the Border
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I crossed the border into the U.S. from Canada with my American wife in mid March. It seemed pretty normal, even given the extra paperwork we were doing: car import, dog import. I’m a green card holder and have gotten comfortable with the ease with which I’ve been able to cross…
How to Prepare a Book
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 6 minutes
I’ve signed a contract to write a book. I’m excited but also a bit daunted. It will be my third book and it is one I have wanted to write for most of my career. As I wrote recently, I started working in law firms when I was 15 and was…
The End of the Remittance Man
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 6 minutes
About 6 years ago, I interviewed for a job in the U.S. I had come to the conclusion that, as our kids were aging out of the house, it was time for us to start planning our return to the States ourselves. The interview went okay—I was a finalist but not…
A Problem in the Legal Profession
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Is working with lawyers more likely than other fields to result with colleagues being impacted by scandals? I wouldn’t have thought so but now I’m not sure. The CEO of a former workplace—who hired me to go to Canada and who I had huge respect for—has just been let go (“is…
Fear of Information Access
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 7 minutes
One long-term challenge for law library decision-makers is the position legal publishers take on their pricing. They incorporate confidentiality clauses in their contracts to prohibit sharing of pricing information. So, when I wrote about my decision about cancelling Bloomberg Law, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when their representative…
The Bar as an Obstacle
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 5 minutes
I was delighted to see the ABA Journal name Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt two of their 2025 Legal Rebels. I’ve already mentioned Prof. Howarth’s book—Shaping the Bar—and will recommend that you read it if you haven’t already. The bar exam, and the obstacle it creates while…
Small Changes for the Same Access
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 7 minutes
My first discussion about equitable access at my current role happened during my interview. I was talking with some students, one of whom had hustled for the interview from work and frequently used the law library after their full-time job. Evenings are a time at which the law library is lightly…
The Plague of Document Formats
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 4 minutes
I was downloading a government form the other day and it told me that I would need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Umm, I don’t think so. Adobe is a corporation whose tools I avoid like the plague. Also, a PDF should not need a proprietary reader in order to be accessed.…
Split the Difference
By David Whelan
Reading Time: 4 minutes
One of the interesting things about my current role is that it is two part-time roles. When I was hired, the role required a library director 49% of the time and a faculty member for the remaining 51%. It has resulted in a lot of unusual outcomes. For example, when I…