Heather Simmons, JD
Associate Director for Instruction and Access Services
University of Georgia School of Law
Heather Simmons earned her B.A. and M.L.S. from the University of Michigan and her J.D. from Wayne State University. She started her career at Wayne State University’s Arthur Neef Law Library in Detroit, Michigan, where she became assistant director in 1988. There, she developed a legal research program for first-year law students. Heather has taught courses on legal information for the Schools of Library Science at both Wayne State and the University of Michigan. In 1994, Heather left academia to run the law library at the General Motors Corporation, where she learned the art of patent and trademark searching. She became a science & technical librarian at the GM Research & Development Library in 1999, while continuing to serve the legal staff. She led the Scientific & Technical Research & Analysis Team from 2003 to 2010. This group of information professionals handled large projects on a wide variety of topics for customers around the company. She also served as GM’s copyright agent from 2008-12. In this capacity she educated GM scientists and engineers about copyright compliance issues. In 2013 Heather returned to academia as Law & Business Reference Librarian at the University of Illinois College of Law and, in 2019, accepted her current position at the University of Georgia School of Law. Heather is active in the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), having received the Matthew Bender Scholarship Award in 1988, serving on AALL’s Executive Board from 1997-2000, and recently chairing AALL's Legal Information Services to the Public Special Interest Section. She currently chairs AALL’s Special Committee on Law Librarianship as a Career. Heather has served on the State Bar of Michigan’s Standing Committee on Libraries, Legal Research and Legal Publications, and co-chaired the Program Committee for the Patent Information User Group's 2017 Annual Meeting. Her research interests include mindfulness in the law, teaching methods, law librarianship, business intelligence, and intellectual property. Follow Heather on Twitter @heatherjsimmons.
Education:
- M.L.S., University of Michigan, 1986
- J.D., Wayne State University, 1985
- A.B., University of Michigan, 1981