This paper examines how information literacy influences scholarship, practice, and leadership, using the legal profession as its primary case. It traces the transformation of legal work brought about by the World Wide Web, focusing on electronic court filing, online legal research tools such as Lexis, and video-enabled hearings. The paper also critiques the failure of academic institutions to equip students with practical information literacy skills, arguing that discouraging Internet use as a research source is counterproductive in an era when nearly all professional and academic journals publish online. The paper concludes with a call for schools to integrate information literacy directly into their curricula.
This paper explains how information literacy influences scholarship, practice, and leadership in a specific profession. For this purpose, the legal profession has been chosen as the primary example.
Badke (2009) writes in "How We Failed the Net Generation" that the World Wide Web came upon most of those who encountered it in the early 1990s as a novelty: "We all guessed it would be promising, but few of us had any idea what it would become in less than three decades" (p. 47). Many of today's students, Badke notes, 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 has made a profound difference in the way their work is performed.
Historically and traditionally, those employed in the legal profession who are required to perform legal research on case law prior to trial have had to visit physical law libraries to conduct their research. Their research was only as current as the material available in that physical library. Similarly, filing motions, complaints, and other documents with the court traditionally required leaving the office, traveling to the county where the case was active, and physically appearing with papers in hand to file them with the clerk of the court. The World Wide Web, however, has brought great changes to how these duties are now performed by legal professionals.
Those in the legal profession are now well aware that court operations have changed significantly. Electronic filing is widely regarded as the greatest development brought about by the web. E-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 in federal court over the Internet" (Marcus, 2008, p. 1835). The immediate impact of these changes has been greater flexibility in deadlines "for submitting documents to courts" (Marcus, 2008, p. 1837). Whereas the filing day once ended at 5:00 p.m., the cutoff has now been extended to midnight, giving legal professionals considerably more working time each day. It is reported that today's lawyers welcome these changes. The shifts brought about by the World Wide Web have led business managers at law firms to extend office hours, since "all attorneys push any deadline," and firms have had to adapt accordingly. E-filing has also enabled clients to view their case information online, which has in turn reduced paperwork costs for law firms.
Legal research methods have been simplified by websites such as LexisNexis and similar platforms, where legal professionals can research case law online and Shepardize or update their findings using web-based legal databases. These changes have been accompanied by further procedural reforms in many courts. One example is the Internet-enabled video hearing. For many individuals who are arrested and held in jail pending a hearing, the video-courtroom format has enabled them to gain quicker access to a judge for matters such as bond reduction, ultimately allowing for a faster resolution of pre-trial detention issues.
"Schools wrongly discourage internet use as a research source"
"Call for schools to integrate information literacy curricula"
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