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Over in VoxPop, Julie Jones looks at the question of better interfaces for legal research –  a  step away from the slot machine, and toward something better.  Have a look.

In this thesis we examine the information behaviour displayed by a broad cross-section of academic and practicing lawyers and feed our findings into the development of the Information Behaviour (IB) methods - two novel methods for evaluating the functionality and usability of electronic resources. We captured lawyers’ information behaviour by conducting naturalistic observations, where we asked participants to think aloud whilst using existing resources to ‘find information required for their work.’ Lawyers’ information behaviours closely matched those observed in other disciplines by Ellis and others, serving to validate Ellis’s existing model in the legal domain. Our findings also extend Ellis’s model to include behaviours pertinent to legal information-seeking, broaden the scope of the model to cover information use (in addition to information-seeking) behaviours and enhance the potential analytical detail of the model through the identification of a range of behavioural ‘subtypes’ and levels at which behaviours can operate. The identified behaviours were used as the basis for developing two methods for evaluating electronic resources – the IB functionality method (which mainly involves examining whether and how information behaviours are currently, or might in future be, supported by an electronic resource) and the IB usability method (which involves setting users behaviour-focused tasks, asking them to think aloud whilst performing the tasks, and identifying usability issues from the think- aloud data). Finally the IB methods were themselves evaluated by stakeholders working for LexisNexis Butterworths – a large electronic legal resource development firm. Stakeholders were recorded using the methods and focus group and questionnaire data was collected, with the aim of ascertaining how usable, useful and learnable they considered the methods to be and how likely they would be to use them in future. Overall, findings were positive regarding both methods and useful suggestions for improving the methods were made.

Those who have an interest in this area might also want to look at some earlier work by Kuhlthau and Tama (widely referenced), and this powerpoint from a 2006 presentation at SWALL (which, in the manner of powerpoints from meetings you haven’t attended, is a little bit cryptic — it would be nice to see the paper).

Hat tip and a low bow to Robert Richards, who brought this to our attention via the Law Librarian Blog.

    A consortium of America’s most influential law reviews today launched The Legal Workshop ( www.legalworkshop.org), a free, online magazine featuring articles based on legal scholarship published in the print editions of seven participating law reviews: Stanford Law Review, New York University Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, and University of Chicago Law Review.

    The Legal Workshop features short, plain-English articles about legal issues and ideas, written by an author whose related, full-length work of scholarship is forthcoming in one of the participating law reviews. But The Legal Workshop does not house a collection of abstracts. Instead, it offers an engaging alternative to traditional academic articles that run 30,000 words with footnotes, enabling scholars to present their well-formulated opinions and their research to a wider audience. In addition to making legal ideas understandable, The Legal Workshop seeks to house the best of legal scholarship in one place­making it easier for readers to find the best writing about all areas of law. …

(read the full press release)

We’re glad to see others join the LII in recognizing the need for legal commentary that reaches out past the walls of the academy.  For the last five years, the student-written LIIBULLETIN has analyzed upcoming Supreme Court cases for a sophisticated public.  We are delighted that law reviews and scholars are picking up on the idea that writing for laypeople is not writing for dummies.  The Legal Workshop is something that’s been sorely needed, and we look forward to its success.

[ Extra credit problem: those interested in seeing what “writing for the public” means might be interested in a “compare and contrast”  reading of yesterday’s syllabus in Arizona v. Gant and the LIIBULLETIN pre-analysis of the case.]

We’d like to help out.  Here at the LII, we can provide structured and worthwhile opportunities for those who are seeking a public-interest berth.  Since November, we’ve been talking with the Cornell Law School’s Assistant Dean for Student and Career Services — an innovator who is really concerned about what’s happening to our current students and recent grads.  Here’s what we’re going to do:

Initially, we will offer writer/editor positions on our WEX legal encyclopedia to any recent Cornell grad who comes to us with a plan of work and a mentor.  We can’t offer pay, but we can offer exposure, attribution, and a chance to do work that will benefit both the profession and the public while keeping writing and research skills sharp.  Because we are entirely Internet-based, our editors can live where they like, and get to work using a web browser.  If we have the capacity, we will extend the offer beyond recent Cornell grads; if you’ve got time, we’ve got a place for you to write.

It’s as simple as that.  WEX would benefit from any amount of work we can collectively put into it, ranging from fairly simple tasks like writing definitions to crafting more complex analyses like encyclopedia entries.  The work will carry the name of its author, and be both visible to the hundreds of thousands who visit the LII site each month and to a professional audience that will (no doubt) offer feedback, positive and negative. (How visible? Search Google for “bankruptcy law”, “environmental law”, or “securities”).

To anticipate some questions:

The upper limit on participants is set by our capacity to supervise them.  That’s the main reason we’ve asked applicants to provide signed agreement from a mentor who will supervise their work.  That might be someone from their firm, an attorney in another practice, or a teacher at their law school.  We do not have a strict limit on the number of participants in mind; we’ll stop taking people when we think we’ve run out of capacity to supervise them.  We are reserving 30 places for Cornell graduates. Beyond that, we will consider applications in the order received.

As that might suggest, we’re very interested in talking to people who want to put together focussed, self-supervising teams — we’re open to differently-structured proposals from other law schools, law firms, and so on.  For example, a school or firm might choose to field a specialized team working under internal supervision by their own senior people (we have a particular need for such teams to work on narratives in our American Legal Ethics Library — there are 26 states for which we have none as yet).  If you are interested in an alternative structure that would result in the creation of significant content in WEX, let us know.

Work will start in earnest around June 1; we are even now working on the cloud-computing-based infrastructure that will support this, and sharpening our editorial blue pencils.

What we offer in return for your participation is, above all,  an opportunity to research and write, with credit and recognition given to the work of editors and mentors.  Attribution is an elusive thing in the wiki world, of course. But we will give (and label articles with) “originator attribution” for those who originate WEX articles; this can include a link to a personal or professional web site. We will also set up an honor roll of mentors and editors, and set up a LinkedIn group for those who participate.  We are open to your ideas other forms of recognition.  The limits are imposed by simple fairness and by our administrative capacity.

Final words to the wise:  we take a very dim view of people who do the bare minimum necessary to meet a posted requirement, and reserve the right to withhold credit for conspicuously adequate work.  We are not a resume service, nor are we a venue for lawyer advertising or link farming.

We hope this will be something that helps us, helps you, and builds something that will help the profession and the public.  If you’re interested, get in touch via our contact form, using the category “WEX public-service project”.

Both groups are dedicated to the idea that non-lawyers can and should understand law, and both have been pursuing that goal for years.  Surprising that we’d never actually met before now, but mutual friend Tim Stanley of Justia was kind enough to perform the introductions. We think there is a lot that we’ll be able to do together in the future– stay tuned.

Our first planned joint activity was to have been a competition to see whose building has the more confusing layout, but the LII has decided to concede the title to Nolo’s extremely cool old clock factory.

(Jake and Tom may look dedicated and intense in the photo, but actually they were talking about sports.  Tim posted more photos here.)

As LII Director Tom Bruce points out over at b-screeds this week, the field of legal information is much bigger than it ever has been. It’s still growing fast.  VoxPopuLII is our way of highlighting the new diversity in  the field and bringing your attention to some voices you may not have heard before.  We certainly hope you’ll read it, and that some of you will join us as commenters and guest-bloggers.