University of Texas School of Law - Peregrinus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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 New Assessment Keeps Library Current Beginning in the Fall Semester of 1990, law students were assessed an additional $7 per credit hour to help keep the Tar I ton Law Library’s book buying ability at an adequate level. With 1,500 law students taking 15 hours a semester, that’s S315,000 a year. Hoy Mersky, Hy der Centennial Professor and Director of Research for the library commented on the use of those funds and the state of the Tarlton Law Library. Qj How has the tuition hike helped to alleviate the library’s problems? A.‘ It’s come close to solving the problem. We were able to reinstate many of the publications. Our acquisition budget is still significantly below our peer schools, but we've come a long way. We’re not suf fering Tarlton Law Library to the extent we were a year ago. We've reinstated most of the subscriptions we had to cancel. So it’s been extremely helpful. But its an ongoing problem. The prices continue to go up at a rate of almost I 5% a year. We're averaging SI50 per monogram for European materials. Not only do we face this high cost, but the devaluation of the dollar has hurl us in the international market. It's hard to catch up. Q' What do you see as the answer to that later down the line? A. We certainly want a larger appropriation from the state — a larger one. I don't think we can continue to go back to the students, it has to be the state. Unfortunately the economy of Texas, unless there's some sort of income tax or lottery, doesn’t look optimistic for the future. The problem isn't going to be solved by soliciting gifts or student fees, its only going to be resolved by state funded appropriations. The other way is we’re going to have to look to alternative methods of providing information. One of those is the computer and non-book, non-traditional forms of research. 12 — Tarlton La Library

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 A. I have three and a half, and a temporary. We actually have a temporary almost all the time because we've just gotten so much busier with Job lairs and we do a great deal of counseling. Right now our counselor is setting up a presentation lor some of our current students who’ve been out there a while who haven’t found a job. on how you can set up your own practice. I think that's an option that wasn't even considered by jpeo-ple three years ago. Which is real unusual because there are a lot of law schools out here with a majority of their graduates going out and setting up their own practise. Jj If you had to give a percentage oFhow many IT Law students will get a job. what would it be? .4 I think it's gonna be right around .r 0, which is certainly down. In the past it's been 80. maybe even 85%. Qj There have been complaints that the Placement Office, because employers base their hiring decisions primarily on grades, is really just a place where people in the top third of their (lass can go. How do you read to that complaint? A' I sent statistics out to all the students with the (percentages of the dassesand how many ol those (people received clerkships through the Placement Office, and we have always done well throughout the (lass — even in the Ipotlom half, one-third of those get their (positions through t lis office. There is that perception — and it's the (perception ol all the schools out there. Some are worse than we are. because although a firm can ( os( its hiring criteria we don't keep anyone from signing up for them. We never restrict. There's nothing in our computers which says red light, red light, this person doesn't meet the criteria. We've al- ways had the philosophy, we don't care about a person's grades. All we say is that grades play an important role in how one should market himself. hat are some of the most memorable comments you've received and what are the general comments you get in feedback from employers about U T students, and vice versa? I.’ The general comment from employers is that they are always astounded at how well prepared our students are, and that really pleases me. That's certainly not the case at a lot of schools. I've had comments like. I thought last year's was the best dass ever, but every year we're more and more impressed.” That tells a lot about the kind of students in this Law School. Usually it's the employers I get complaints about. Sometimes I've had problems with lawyers that have too much lunch — they drink it. 'They've done some pretty amazing things. The worst one was when the student asked them their name's, so they wrote their first names on their post-it pads and stuck them on their forehead for the entire interview — they went through the whole interview with lorn and bob written on their foreheads. My favorite story involved a guy from New York. All through the morning of Ins interviews he kept going out the back depor to the men's room. We'd alpout decided he had come into Austin and partied too much, but then he asked us to call him a taxi because he Iclt like he had to go to the hospital. It ends up he had had ap|pcudicit is and had to have an emergency operation, lie calls over the next morning saying he felt really bad about the kids, he was sup-(posed to see and asked if we could call all ol those and arrange lor them to come over to the hospital to interview. I hat was dedication. (Jim Srmi rs (PN'mc I I

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Many of the materials we receive in hardback are also available on computer. Its going to take a while to get everyone comfortable and computer literate. Whenever we achieve this we’ll be able to cut out some of the printed material. An example is you can do Sheppard’s more efficiently, quicker and up-to-date on the computer, but we still maintain a great deal of Sheppard's that run $10,000 to $15,000 a year. Q Where does the library’s problem with staff pay stand? A.' The funds we got from student fees are being used to maintain and enrich the collection, and none are being used to raise staff salaries. We still rank very poorly and it continues to be a primary concern, and its an area where we’d like to see The University provide adequate compensation for the professionals here. The access to the legal information is going to require a level of expertise which our lawyer librarians have. We won’t be able to teach the students to use it, nor will we be able to retrieve that information without that level of expertise. What steps are being made to ensure the legislature knows about the need lor these funds? ,4: On my level 1 have no contact with the legislature. My responsibility is to inform the Dean of these needs, and I do that through constant memos and comparative analysis of our salaries compared to the salaries of our peer schools. Our student body’s comments in a survey we’ve conducted have been extremely positive about the help and support our staff gives. Nationally, the University of Texas staff is noted to be the premiere library staff in the United States, and as such, anybody — Continued on page 15 photos by E. Clayton Brantly Tarlton I .aw Library — 13