Why Academic Law Librarians Quit: Results of the Law Librarian Exit Survey

The pandemic exposed the struggles of workers everywhere. The complexity of handling family, work, illness, and a host of other issues led many to reconsider their employment. The phrase “The Great Resignation” summed up the zeitgeist of the early pandemic. Concurrently, open positions for academic law librarians were increasing. I sought to unravel the apparent surge in open positions by surveying academic law librarians to discover why they resigned from their positions or considered leaving them during the period of January 2020 through June 2023. These findings were evaluated within the context of a high volume of job postings in an otherwise stable field. This paper presents the quantitative survey results, revealing the complex reasons academic law librarians quit, including career advancement, low salaries, unbalanced workloads, and lack of respect.