Job Lot: The legal annotator

Elisabeth Hartland, aged 32, is a legal annotator employed, on a contract basis, by the legal publisher, Brookers. She earns around $50,000 a year. And she does earn it: Hartland is known as the fastest annotator in the land. When she's working, all you see is a blur of paper and paste brush.

What does a legal annotator do?

We go round every six months and update the law books: the statutes and regulations — in every court, university, library, law firm, local body office and newspaper office in the country. But I'm Auckland based.

We're in and out of two to three offices every day updating the regulations which go back to 1936 up to 1999; the statutes from 1979 through to 1999 and the 41 reprinted statutes as well. I can do 100 sets every six months.

What are the qualifications?

None. They just trained us up.

I came straight from school, I've been doing it since I was 16.

What attracted you to the job?

My mum did it and she introduced me into it. She did it from 1961, did it while she was pregnant with me, stopped when I was born and took it on again when I was about 11. So she's been doing it for quite a few years.

Is she still doing it?

She is. She's the one sitting there. [Her mother, Jill Carne, is sitting across a table divided by big blue New Zealand statute books and gluepots.]

But you're the boss?

Well, they call me the boss but only because I go a bit faster.

Carne: I annotated right through when I was expecting her, so she should be fast.

How fast is fast?

A set of statutes I can do in two hours, whereas a lot of people would take four to five hours. You do have to be quick at what you do.

What's it like working together?

Carne: We don't normally, but we do enjoy working together — but I can't go as fast as I used to. As I've got older and she's got faster, I've had to concede defeat. I always say 'I hate working with you,' from the point of view that she always beats me. But never mind.

Hartland is diplomatically mum on the subject — she does, though, laugh a lot.

You're a contract worker, how are you paid?

It depends on the amount of work in each six-month period, and that depends on how much legislation has been put through. So the more legislation, the better. We're paid per set of statutes and per set of regulations and how many galleys of paper [required to update the volumes.]

What are the tools of the job?

Glue, paste brush, red crayon, ruler, finger cone — and a rubber just in case you make a mistake. A heavy bag full of inserts.

What's fun about the job?

The flexibility of the hours; I don't have to work nine to five. And I enjoy being in a different office each day and the variety of meeting different people.

Carne: When we work in the library you get all these people coming in with their eyes just about rolling out of their heads, they think we're ripping up the books. And the kids say 'we're not allowed to do that.'

What makes a good legal annotator?

You need to be accurate: if a judge is in court and holding one of the statutes and quoting from it, if you make a mistake it could be in it. Good concentration and organisational skills help.

Will you go on doing the job for as long as your mum has?

Well, it's going electronic. Maybe in another few years, we won't be here. They're saying between two to five years when the electronic statutes actually become law.

Are you worried that legal annotators are an endangered species?

Carne: I'm not because I'm just about due to retire — I've done my whack. I've been here too long now.

Hartland: I've done nothing else, so yeah. It leaves me wondering what to do. I'll have to look at doing something else, I'm not sure what.