Tim Lewis (’84) knew from the moment he arrived at law school that he wanted to be a law librarian.
“I’m attracted to legal research,” he said. “It’s very structured and logical. I never wanted to practice. I had no intention of it.”
After he graduated, he was hired as a reference librarian for the Alabama Supreme Court, and in 1992 he was appointed Director and State Law Librarian.
When he accepted the position, administrators at the law library were planning a move to a new building. As a result, Lewis helped design the law library and administered the process of moving 250,000 books from 10 locations in Montgomery.
He also ushered in technology. The law library was the second state agency after the Alabama Department of Archives and History to have its own website, and it was in the new building that judges, trial lawyers and the general public had direct access to computer-assisted research. Before the move to the new building, anyone who wanted to access Westlaw or LexisNexis had to ask for assistance.
As the library’s administrator, Lewis serves as the de facto historian for the oldest law library in Alabama and the second oldest library in the state. One of his most challenging responsibilities is pleading the case for budgeting to state legislators.
People don’t visit libraries so much for the legal resources housed there; they come to use the expertise of the librarians, who can wade through an ocean of knowledge and find the appropriate document. It’s a public service for the judges and trial lawyers as well as the general public.
“Appellate courts have to access the law, access the cases,” Lewis said. “They base decisions on previous cases. If you don’t have access to those, you can’t function as an appellate court.”
Today the law library serves three courts: The Alabama Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Civil Appeals. It provides access to all appellate cases in the United States and archives all laws passed by legislatures of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as Acts of Congress, the United States Code and federal agency regulations.
The law library is public-service driven, providing help to anyone who needs assistance finding the information they need. While doing that is no longer a part of Lewis’s everyday responsibilities, judges and lawyers routinely call on him for information because they trust he can find it.
“I cannot tell you the number of chief justices and associate justices on the Supreme Court of Alabama that I have witnessed praising him and expressing gratitude for his work,” said Larry King, senior partner with King Simmons, P.C. in Birmingham.
“He loves what he does,” said Penny Gibson, a reference librarian at the Bounds Library at The University of Alabama School of Law, who has known Lewis for more than 30 years. “He’s good with judges. He’s good with law students. He’s good with people who come in. He’s a people person and has a knack for knowing how to deal with people.”
Lewis said he is a reference librarian at heart and relishes the opportunity to help people find the information they need.
“When you can help them, it makes you feel good,” he said. “That’s still the most satisfying part of my job.”