Legal Research

The science of search: time for a librarian role in e-discovery?

By Jason

A column by Craig Ball in the April issue of Law Technology News, The Science of Search, argues that ”lawyers need to learn more about the science of search as part of our legal and continuing education.” As someone tasked with educating attorneys about the science of search, I will say hear hear! But I do think this article bears closer scrutiny for law librarians and attorneys alike.

Going by this article, e-discovery may be an important area where law librarians can use their expertise and expand their roles in law firms. To hear some of Ball’s stories about keyword searching in e-discovery procedures, it seems apparent that some expertise is needed. While Ball argues that attorneys should learn what they need in order to carry out e-discovery searching, many attorneys might find that they have all the expertise they need lurking in the library. Laura Orr also took note of this.

I won’t fault Ball for failing to mention librarians. It is a shorter column, and his focus was not legal research or searching generally, but rather a lack of knowledge by attorneys. This point is brought home by a paragraph where Ball writes:

The notion that lawyers are unqualified per se to concoct keyword searches is likely to shake some sensibilities. Lawyers believe themselves adept at keyword search in e-discovery because they’ve mastered keyword search in online legal research.

Ron at Strategic Legal Technology recognizes that many law librarians would argue that lawyers have not mastered keyword search in online legal research. I’m not going to definitively comment on whether or not lawyers have mastered keyword searching.

But I will say that although I am all in favor of attorneys learning better searching techniques generally, it may be time to examine the role librarians can play in e-discovery. Clients of law firms may be best served when law librarians do what they do best, handle the searching; while attorneys do what they do best, practice law.

Full post as published by Jason the Content Librarian on April 28, 2008 (boomark / email).