Information Literacy and Its Influence on Business and Future Leaders

¶ … Literacy & Its Influence on Business and Future Leaders

The objective of this study is to explain how information literacy influences scholarship, practice, and leadership in a specific profession or discipline. For the purpose of this study, the legal profession will be chosen.

Badke (2009) writes in the work entitled 'How We Failed the Net Generation' that the World Wide Web came upon most of us who encountered it in the early 90's as a novelty. WE all guessed it would be promising, but few of us had any idea what it would become in less than 3 decades." (p.47) Many of today's students are noted in the work of Badke to have "grown up with the web, so for them it is not a novelty. It's mainstream. It's embedded in their lives." (p.47) For those in the legal profession, the World Wide Web had made a huge difference in the way that they perform their work.

The Legal Profession

Historically and traditionally, those who are employed in the legal profession and who are required to perform legal research on case law prior to entering into the courtroom situations of trial have had to go to physical law libraries to conduct their research. Their research was only as up-to-date as was the material available in the physical law library. As well, filing motions, complaints, and other documents with the court historically and traditionally involved leaving the office and traveling to the county in which the case was active and physically appearing with the papers in hand to file them with the clerk of the court in which the case was to be heard. The World Wide Web however, has resulted in great changes in how these duties are now able to be performed by those in the legal profession.

II. Changes in the Legal Profession Duties Due to the WWW

Those in the legal profession are now well aware that the operations of courts have changed greatly. Electronic filing is stated to be the greatest development due to the web in that electronic filing "has become effectively universal in U.S. federal courts. More than thirty-one million cases are on the federal filing system, and more than 320,000 attorneys and others have filed documents I federal court over the Internet." (Marcus, 2008, p.1835) The immediate impact of these changes has resulted in deadlines that are "more flexible…for submitting documents to courts." (Marcus, 2008, p. 1837) Whereas the day ended at 5:00 P.M. For filing documents with the court, the time is now extended until 12:00 midnight allowing for more time in each day for the legal profession to perform its duties. It is reported that today's lawyers love the changes. The changes wrought by the World Wide Web has resulted in business managers in the legal profession extending their working hours because it is stated that since "all attorneys push any deadline" that the fact that office hours must be increased has been realized by law firms. E-filing has resulted in the ability of clients to view their information online as well, which in turn has resulted in a reduction of the costs of paperwork for today's law firms.

Legal research methods have been simplified by such websites as Lexis and others where those in the legal profession can conduct research on case law online and are able to Sherpardize or update their findings using the World Wide Web and the legal websites that make provision of case law online. These changes have also been accompanied by changes for many courts in the hearings and trial process. One example of this is the Internet enabled video hearing. For many individuals who are arrested and housed in the jail pending a hearing the video-courtroom has enabled them to gain quicker access to the judge in filing for bond reduction and other such court-required hearings ultimately allowing them to make a quicker exit out of the jail pending the trial for the case in which they were arrested.

III. Where Schools Have Failed Students in Information Literacy