Toward a Cyberlegal Culture

Although universal on-line access to legal information has vastly expanded the lawyer's practical resources, it does not come with a clear and reliable methodology. A fundamental shift in approach is necessary to understand its enormous transformation of the legal research process; using it requires a new set of procedures amounting to the assimilation of a new legal culture. Now for the first time this new 'cyberlegal' culture is fully set forth in a way that makes its great benefits available to all legal practitioners and law librarians. This volume provides an in-depth analysis of the new legal infrastructure inherent in the internationalisation of legal research via the internet. It presents dependable strategies for navigating efficiently in the virtual reality environment, with special attention to the librarian's role in shaping legal database interfaces. It thoroughly explains how the law library's mission is restructured, adding a teaching dimension to its traditional role as a reference service.The author describes the skills and managerial decisions that characterise the cyberlegal culture, showing the reader exactly how the cyberlegal information specialist conducts substantive legal research. She spells out the guiding principles on evaluating databases, other online legal research tools, and the 'linked thinking' capabilities of the internet.