Legal Research

Lawyers Beset By Information Overload, Study Finds

By Simon Chester

A national workplace survey reports that more than seven in ten American white collar workers feel inundated with information at their workplace, while more than two in five feel that they are headed for an information ?breaking point.?

Sponsored by our friends in Dayton, OH, the news release states:

Eighty percent of legal professionals feel overloaded with information, and 70 percent say they spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant information. Nearly half say that research takes up so much of their time that they occasionally omit billing clients for this work.

Other survey findings that demonstrate challenges for the legal industry and point to some solutions include:

90 percent of legal professionals agree that not being able to access the right information at the right time is a huge time-waster;

95 percent of legal professionals believe that a legal research tool designed for their specific area of practice is important;

79 percent think it is important to have a legal research tool that integrates research into workflow;

78 percent feel that it is important to have a legal research tool that provides analysis and expertise, and;

On average, legal professionals say they handle 36.7 emails daily, with 22 percent reporting that they receive 50 or more work-related emails in a typical day.

?While the LexisNexis study points out that legal professionals are even more inundated than your average white collar professional, the results also suggest some possible ways technology can help them cope with the ever-increasing amount of information coming through their doors,? said Allan McLaughlin, senior vice president of research, litigation and business information solutions for LexisNexis. ?In particular, online and software solutions in the area of legal research help professionals retrieve the most relevant information faster and within the context of their normal workflow.?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on February 26, 2008 (boomark / email).