An Integrated Approach to Information Literacy in Legal Education

Robyn Carroll, Helen Wallace
2002 Legal education review  
formed, not surprisingly, the basis for reassessment of legal research programs in Australian law schools. 11 The issues facing law schools have arisen from two directions. On the one hand the demand on universities to produce graduates with the generic skills to enter a profession, and on the other, the demand from the legal profession for the skills to keep pace with the burgeoning development of electronic legal information resources. 12 Defining "skills" is no easy task and we will not
more » ... pt that here. 13 We are using the term broadly to equate with information literacy. The QUT classification of graduate attributes 14 is helpful to our understanding of the place of information literacy in legal education. These graduate attributes have been described as discipline knowledge, ethical attitude, communication, problem solving and reasoning, information literacy and interpersonal focus. 15 Applying Bruce's definition of information literacy to the study and practice of Law, it is the ability to:  locate legal materials (primary and secondary] using appropriate retrieval tools and techniques;  evaluate the relevance, applicability, and value of the located materials to the task at hand. This will include assessing the relevance, precedent value and other factors affecting the authority of the material;  manage the information, that is, to sort, categorise and rank the information; and  use the information for the task at hand, such as advising on the law, formulating a policy argument or identifying theoretical perspectives presented in the materials. Information literacy is as much an attribute of the process of "lawyering" as are discipline knowledge and the ability to problem solve and engage in legal reasoning. Not surprisingly it will be difficult at times to draw a line between the information skills 16 involved in locating and knowing how to use the law (information literacy) and the mental skills 17 involved in applying the law (discipline knowledge, problem solving and reasoning). In each case there is an element of problem solving. 18 In practical terms, when we aim to train the "whole lawyer" we would expect there to be a high level of interface between these different attributes.
doi:10.53300/001c.6153 fatcat:hljoymqi6nhahhaadngyuvzfgq