3.4. Information literacy and information seeking behaviour
3.4.1. Studies in lawyers’ information seeking behaviour
Studies in the information behaviour of lawyers have revealed that the pattern of their
information seeking behaviour, as with other professions, is informed by the kind of work they
do. Legal practice is however more information intensive in the sense that a considerable amount of information is required in order to accomplish a given task. Legal cases usually include such responsibilities as advising clients on their rights and liabilities, drafting conveyances and leases of property, deeds of partnerships and other commercial agreements, wills, client representations in court cases, and so on, all of which require the practical application of legal theory and
knowledge and an effective legal research skill in problem solving (Otike & Matthews, 2000:
242; Tuhumwire & Okello-Obura, 2010: 1). Hence a number of factors such as the level of experience of the practitioner, the peculiar nature of a case as well as the area of specialisation of the law firm, determine the type and amount of information required in addressing the issues in any case. This view supports Leckie, Pettigrew and Sylvain’s (1996: 173) earlier study in which they argued that certain areas of law are more labour intensive with respect to information use than others in that they require greater attention and consultation with the sources of information.
Access to legal information resources is also a contributing factor to the information seeking behaviour of lawyers and the conduct of legal practice. Tuhumwire and Okello-Obura (2010) in their study on the legal information needs of lawyers in Uganda examined problems of timely access to legal information and its effects on the judicial process. They observed that the failure to articulate better legal services in Uganda can be attributed to the inadequate knowledge in the areas of the lawyers’ information needs and the strategies that could be employed to improve legal information access to legal practitioners in Uganda. The study recommended more proactive ways of accessing legal information that would ensure efficient legal services to the judicial process in Uganda (Tuhumwire & Okello-Obura, 2010: 5). Observations from this study corroborate Haruna and Mabawonku’s (2001) findings on the information seeking needs and behaviour of lawyers in Nigeria in which they concluded that the most pressing information needs of Nigerian lawyers related to access to recent decisions of superior courts, new
legislations, and advice on bettering their knowledge and skills. Their findings emphasised the responsibility of law libraries in fully meeting the information needs of legal practitioners in Nigeria (Haruna & Mabawonku, 2001: 70).
Studies on the information seeking behaviour of lawyers that explore the impact of ICT and the Internet on legal practice (have also been undertaken). Hinson and others (2007: 312)
investigated the impact of the Internet and how it has contributed to the efficacy of the legal profession in Ghana. It focused on transformation in law firms as a result of the impact of the Internet and how it has served as a source of access to a wide variety of legal information resources such as Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw and the database of Ghanaian laws published by the Datacenta in Ghana. These resources have positively affected the information seeking behaviour of lawyers by serving as a valuable source for seeking relevant literature thereby enabling them to harness its resources in ways that help enhance the quality of legal services in Ghana.
Conclusions drawn from the study stressed the need for the digitisation of court proceedings, legal notices and other literature which could be accessed through the Internet as well as the establishment of an Internet policy that would guide legal information services in Ghana (Hinson
& others, 2007: 320).
Du Plessis and Du Toit (2006: 361) explored the impact of technological advancements, computerised legal databases, CD-ROMs and other electronic media on legal information services and practice in law firms in South Africa. The study examined how such developments have transformed the methods that lawyers have employed to access, retrieve and process information and the consequent need for effective digital legal research skills in delivering legal services to clients. They concluded that the future of the information technology era indicates that successful legal practice will depend on the level of acquired information literacy skills and their applicability to the techniques of legal research and knowledge management systems within law firms (Du Plessis & Du Toit, 2006: 369).
Rossouw and Fourie (2007) in their study sought to gain an understanding of the potential value of Current Awareness Services (CAS) for users of legal information. According to Rossouw and Fourie (2007: 67), the provision of CAS through the World Wide Web (WWW) can be a useful source of updated information to information searchers in the legal field. The study explored the various sources of CAS that are available on the Web for the legal profession particularly in such areas as international law where new legislations, treaties, decisions and so on are constantly updated. Conclusions from the study pointed to the need for greater exploitation of the potential and use of CAS in the legal profession (Rossouw & Fourie, 2007: 70-77).
Another study which aimed at gaining a better understanding of lawyers’ information seeking behaviour in the use of electronic resources is that undertaken by Makri (2008). The study involved studying the behaviour of both academic and practicing lawyers with the objective of integrating user-centred legal information seeking support into digital law libraries. Using Ellis’
1989 model of information seeking behaviour, the methodology involved conducting naturalistic observations by which academic and practicing lawyers were asked to think aloud whilst using electronic legal resources. The behaviours that were identified were then used to develop two novel methods for evaluating electronic resources that could inform the design and evaluation of electronic legal resources. Makri’s study validated Ellis’s model of information seeking
behaviour in ways that could inform the design of digital law libraries to better support user information behaviour (Davidson, 2010: 569).
Issues of task complexity as experienced by early career lawyers in their information seeking behaviour have also shown how they use information in accomplishing a given task in Kuhlthau and Tama’s (2001) study. Complex tasks indicate aspects of work that require considerable thinking, formulation and the construction of a new approach in tackling a legal case. Findings from the study indicated the different ways in which novice lawyers engage with the sources of information and suggested that lawyers desire information services that are highly customised to their needs (Kuhlthau & Tama, 2001: 27, 30).
The necessity for competency in information seeking is informed by the expanding base of Internet resources as well as the array of legal electronic databases which are constantly being upgraded with new functionalities (Du Plessis, 2008: Lawyers legal research; Davidson, 2010:
566). These studies have shown that the current impact of ICT and its implication for
professional practice places a greater emphasis on the value of information skills’ acquisition for effective legal practice (Wall & Johnston, 1997: 98). Some of the findings from these studies also stress the need to understand the actual context of legal practice in order for prospective lawyers to be equipped with transferable skills for the workplace. Trimmer (2001: Use of technology) also observed that the practice of law requires a high level of information literacy with an emphasis on electronic information searching and retrieval as well as the application of sophisticated software to the context of legal practice.
A major characteristic of the studies reviewed shows that contextual issues are fundamental to the process of information seeking and influence the users’ information seeking process. This view affirms the understanding that an investigation into the information seeking behaviour of any discipline is best undertaken in the context of the user’s information needs (Wilkinson, 2001:
258; Zach, 2005: 23). Leckie, Pettigrew and Sylvain (1996) in exploring the information seeking behaviour of three professional groups (lawyers, engineers, and health professionals), employed an extensive approach by incorporating the situational factors that constitute task responsibilities within each professional group and how they affect their information seeking behaviour. For lawyers in particular, the authors noted that their information needs and information seeking behaviour are highly related to the major roles and associated tasks they perform (Leckie, Pettigrew & Sylvain 1996: 174). The study proposed an analytic model representing the domain of each professional group’s information seeking environment. The basic assumption of the model is that the roles and related tasks undertaken by professionals in the course of daily practice prompts particular information needs which give rise to an information seeking process (Leckie, Pettigrew & Sylvain, 1996: 180-181). The proposed model provides a useful framework for investigating lawyers’ information seeking behaviour and the range of tasks embedded in legal practice.
Spurgin (2008: 2) notes that most studies in LIS research consider information behaviour to consist of seeking and use, resulting in almost all studies focusing on only a limited aspect of information behaviour, that is, information seeking. In reviewing the concept of information seeking behaviour in relation to this study therefore, it is important to state that this study took a broad approach, that is, it sought to explore issues of information use as well as the sources of accessing such information with respect to investigating the information literacy and information seeking behaviour of the aspirant barristers in the workplace in Nigeria. It was hoped that the analytic process using the selected models and theories would help in the identification of the level of IL skills of the aspirant barristers in ways that provided a link between IL in the workplace and information seeking behaviour within the context of legal information use.