The Rochester Regional Library Council (RRLC or the Council) retains an attorney to offer RRLC 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.
Members should check the information-rich Recently Asked Questions (RAQs) section, which is housed on the Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) website, before completing the form. Another member may have already asked the same question! School or public libraries are required to first check with your library systems before submitting an inquiry since your system may be best positioned to answer your question. You can also check out the Ask the Lawyer resource page.
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.
Before submitting a question, please know the following: Ask the Lawyer is a service arranged with your regional Library Council. Upon submission, you and your Council 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 your regional Library 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.
“Ask the Lawyer” is a trademark of the Empire State Library Network whose members include the Western New York Library Resources Council and the eight other participating library councils: Capital District Library Council, Central New York Library Resources Council, Long Island Library Resources Council, Metropolitan New York Library Council, Northern New York Library Network, Rochester Regional Library Council, South Central Regional Library Council, and Southeastern New York Library Resources Council. All “Ask the Lawyer” answers are the copyright of author Stephanie Adams.
Updated 8/7/2023