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TRU Law Faculty News

By Ryan Gauthier*

AN INTERVIEW WITH LAW LIBRARIAN MICHELLE TERRISS In February 2022, TRU Law had the great fortune of welcoming Michelle Terriss to the school as one of our law librarians. Michelle was kind enough to take some time for a short interview in late October 2022. The purpose of the interview was not only to introduce Michelle to the B.C. legal community, but also to learn more about the world of legal librarians. Michelle, please tell the B.C. legal profession a little about yourself I was born in New Brunswick, lived for a long time in Nova Scotia and then moved to Alberta. My dad was an engineer, and my mom was a nurse for the Royal Canadian Air Force. I did my J.D. at the University of Alberta, gradating in 2015. I graduated from my master’s in library information studies (“MLIS”) program in 2019.

Between the J.D. and the MLIS, I worked in a small firm in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. The practice was about thirty per cent family, about twenty-five per cent civil litigation and the rest mostly administrative law and criminal law.

Why did you decide to do an MLIS? The thing I liked most about being a lawyer was doing the research. Since I was a generalist, I had to learn a lot about everything. For instance, since I was working in family law, I needed to get up to speed on wills quickly. Naturally, I needed to understand the “why” behind the law, so I could figure out what the law meant for my clients. And honestly, I enjoyed the research a bit more than the client-facing aspect.

Things really came together when I was on a holiday in Greece. I went to the Ionian Islands to trace the path of Odysseus—I am a bit of a nerd. When

* Ryan Gauthier is an associate professor at the TRU Faculty of Law.

I went back to Athens, I was sitting in a Brothers Grimm-themed cafe to get out of the midday sun. Someone at the table mentioned that the Brothers Grimm started as lawyers who became librarians and another person responded: “That’s a weird career path.” But it turned out that was a real path. What do you study in an MLIS? It really depends on the program. Some people take different courses if they want to specialize in working with children, or in academic libraries, or in some other area. Information theory was a core component of the program—it focuses on the critical aspects of being a librarian, such as being a gatekeeper of information, and what doors a librarian can open for someone who is looking for information. We looked at the technological side of being a librarian as well.

I also studied knowledge management, which asks the question: How do people look for information? For example, we ask how information gets passed around in ways that may not necessarily be intuitive. We looked at an instance where companies took out their watercooler from the office, seeing watercooler chats as a waste of time. But the company found out that gathering around the watercooler was a critical source of information-sharing by employees. Did you know what you wanted to do after the MLIS? Sort of. I got a job with McLennan Ross between the first and second years of my program. So I knew by the end of that first year that I would be going back into the legal field.

But how I got that job is a bit of a story. The Canadian Association of Law Libraries has the Diana M. Priestly Memorial Scholarship, which I received in 2018. For the prize, I wrote a short essay creating a taxonomy of legal precedents. A member of the scholarship selection committee included the law librarian at McLennan Ross. I was hired to work on just what I set out in my scholarship application.

At McLennan Ross, I worked with the firm on knowledge management, helping members of the firm find precedents more easily. Eventually, the questions evolved from legal information to legal advice, and I got my insurance back and ended up more as a research lawyer. I really enjoyed the knowledge management work, as I know how to create a system that I used to be an end user of. I am perhaps too big of a nerd to be a regular lawyer, but I can create the systems that can help lawyers. What did you do between your second tour in the law and TRU? I was pretty interested in rural issues and decided to move to northeastern

Alberta for a little bit to work in their general libraries. It was a rewarding experience, but also a bit of a strange time as the pandemic broke out.

During this time, we could really see the importance of libraries to their communities. For example, Canada Emergency Response Benefit (“CERB”) applications had to be filled out online. For many people in rural communities, the internet is not great, which is where the library serves as a helpful resource. But when libraries were closed during the pandemic, people could not use the internet to apply for CERB.

The library is also a social hub for most people. Where is the place you can go in a town where you don’t have to be invited in or pay to be? The library is the one place in most communities. Now that you’re at TRU Law, where’s your head at? I was excited to come to TRU Law, as I really do enjoy working in law libraries. I also enjoy the education aspect. I like watching the light go on with law students, and working with them to really engage in the material.

I find that a lot of legal education is the “sage on the stage” approach. I worry that it may not be very engaging, and may only serve to make the lecturer appear smart [the author takes this only somewhat personally!]. A librarian can break down barriers, as the intimidation factor is much lower. That said, I’m freaking out a little bit about being back in the classroom as an instructor for Advanced Legal Research and Writing in January 2023.

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