Ask the Lawyer! | Southeastern NY Library Resources Council

Southeastern NY Library Resources Council (Southeastern or the Council) retains an attorney to offer Southeastern and its members timely input on human resources, intellectual property, digital rights management, vendor contracts, first amendment, civil rights, employment law, and other legal issues that can impact library operations.

Before completing the form, members should check the information-rich Recently Asked Questions (RAQs) on the Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) website. Another member may have already asked the same question! Schools or public libraries must check with your library systems before submitting an inquiry since your system may be best positioned to answer your question.

For immediate HR-related needs with personnel, please provide minimal information on this form and select Immediate in the time sensitivity box. Be ready to supply more details and relevant paperwork when you receive a call from the attorney’s office. For other less urgent non-personnel HR matters, your question will be processed in the same manner as all other “Ask the Lawyer” questions.

How Does it work?

A Southeastern staff member and the lawyer will review the form. Responses and answers may be provided in several formats:
•    a memo shared with all members if the issue is pertinent to more than one member library,
•    a training session if the issue is pertinent to a group of member libraries or library type,
•    an addition to the “Recently Asked Questions (RAQ) ” on the SENYLRC website, or
•    a memo shared only with the member library requesting the information and the Southeastern staff person who manages the service.

Please remember that the Ask the Lawyer service is not legal advice to your organization. Always alert officers at your institution if a lawsuit is threatened or if a matter is so specific or critical that your own institution’s attorney should be involved. Provide as much information as possible when completing the form. You may upload files at the bottom of the form if you have documentation that would assist the attorney in answering your inquiry. Note that the form cannot be saved and must be completed in one sitting.

How to submit?

Before submitting a question, please know the following: Ask the Lawyer is a service arranged with Southeastern. Upon submission, you and Southeastern, as joint clients, will seek the services of the Law Office of Stephanie Adams, PLLC (the” LOSA”). The “Ask the Lawyer” service is not legal representation of your organization.

Unless you authorize otherwise, the matter will remain confidential between you and the Council, but if it must remain confidential to only your library, you should contact a lawyer directly and not utilize this service. With your authorization, responses from the Ask the Lawyer may come in the form of public commentary shared with the member who inquired and become part of a legal “RAQ – Recently Asked Questions” on the WNYLRC website, a training session (in person or webinar), or a confidential memo shared only with the inquiring library and the Council liaison.

The “Ask the Lawyer Request Form” is not a guarantee that your inquiry will be answered by the attorney. If your inquiry is appropriate for the service, then the attorney will be directed to formulate a response to your inquiry. If the LOSA has a conflict of interest, or there is another reason it cannot be answered (for instance, if the Council staff feels the inquiry is asking for a specific legal nuance to an existing RAQ, or if the inquiry is highly specific to your institution) the law office and the Council will let you know that services will not proceed.

For immediate HR personnel-related questions, the Council will fund the initial response from the attorney but cannot guarantee any further financial support for legal services associated with the specific question.

Please complete the form in one sitting – the form can’t be saved to continue later. If you have documentation that would assist the attorney in answering your inquiry, you may upload files at the bottom of this form.

About Our Attorney

The attorney for this service is Stephanie (“Cole”) Adams, who first developed a deep connection to libraries working as a page, then clerk, at her hometown library in New Hartford, NY. Ms. Adams went on to work at the libraries of her Alma Maters, Hampshire College, and SUNY Buffalo School of Law. She served for over ten years as the in-house counsel at Niagara University in Niagara Falls, NY. An attorney admitted to practice in both the state and federal courts of New York, Ms. Adams has extensive experience with the issues confronting information professionals. Ms. Adams works closely with WNYLRC and other library councils to craft useful replies to member library questions.

RAQs: Recently Asked Questions

ASK THE LAWYER! Maintains Recently Asked Questions (RAQs), which are available here.