Just the facts ma’am
Yolanda Jones
Initial Findings
Goals
• How did students do research in the
clinic?
• Did their research fit established theories
of information behavior?
• How can this information help to improve
instruction and information services to the
clinic?
Methodology
• Villanova University School of Law Farmworker
Legal Aid Clinic
• Observation of meetings between students and
instructor
• Observation of Lexis and Westlaw sessions
• Examination of documents, including copies of
email communications in print and network case
files.
• Observation over eight week period during
Summer/Fall 2004
• Focus: Where did problem areas occur?
Farmworker Clinic
• Students in the Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic,
work in teams of two to represent people
(generally Hispanic) who are living and
working in agricultural and agriculturerelated settings throughout Pennsylvania
• Students represent farmworkers in a variety
of legal matters to help their clients meet
their basic needs.
Case Types
• workers’ compensation claims for people
who need long-term care for work-based
injuries
• housing related issues
• wage claims
• employment discrimination and
• immigration
Students are responsible for all tasks:
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Client counseling and interviewing;
Fact investigation;
Legal research;
Resolution of ethical issues;
Case theory development; and
Negotiation with opposing parties.
Nature of Clinic Cases
• Ten clients observed
– Complex cases
– Cases took place over long periods of time (more
than one group of students worked on some of the
cases).
What happened in the clinic?
• Large amounts of collaboration.
– But sometimes that is not a good thing!
• Used research files to communicate research
results to partners and later students.
– Often less than successful.
• Preference for electronic format.
– Although instructor often provided references to print
materials as starting points.
• Used library as a last resort.
Client A
• Undocumented (illegal) immigrant juvenile
pled guilty to theft in Florida as an adult.
Later accused of rape in Pennsylvania.
Trying to become classified as a
dependent in Pennsylvania to avoid
deportation by winning a Special
Immigrant Juvenile Visa.
Client B
• Husband and wife immigrants did not
speak English. Auto insurance/broker
allowed an exclusion clause for wife even
though she had just obtained a driver’s
license. Wife had accident for which the
insurance company refuses to
pay. “Translator” for the couple also had
limited English language skills.
Client C
• Hurt Worker Firing Case – Employee
injured. Went to the doctor a couple of
times but soon stopped going. Was
injured on 2/3. Fired on 2/22.
Client D
• Several issues (involving four family members):
• Husband – immigration issue. Just got green
card and now wants to get rest of family
naturalized. Tax issues (may have claimed
earned income credit when not available to illegal
immigrants).
• Wife - Wishes to become naturalized.
• Husband wishes minor child to be naturalized.
Minor child is disabled (suspected autistic).
• Husband wishes 2d minor child to be naturalized.
• All- the family apartment (near a candy factory) is
being taken by the state of Pennsylvania by
eminent domain.
Client E
• Worker's Compensation issue. Client
injured picking apples in Pennsylvania.
The client subsequently moved to Ohio.
Case dissolved due to inability to contact
client.
Client F
• Client F worked on a mushroom farm. He went
to the doctor after a few months with a knee
problem. The employer sent him to another
doctor. Each doctor issued a conflicting opinion.
One said that the knee problem was caused by
work, the other said that the injury was not a
consequence of Client F's job. Client F filled out
a social security disability form but checked the
"not work related" box. Client F does not speak
English. Did he understand what he was
indicating by checking the "not work related"
box?
Client G
• Minors from Mexico were harassed and
physically abused on a landscaping job.
Filed suit for a hostile work environment as
well as assault and better. One of the
minors went back to Mexico. The clinic is
pursuing the case on behalf of the
remaining client. The main issues
revolved around service of process (Who
can serve notice of the suit? How should
it be served?).
Client H
• An undocumented worker was employed
by a company which set up outdoor
Christmas decorations at malls and other
locations. On the way back from a job at
an Indian resort and casino the client was
involved in an accident on the expressway.
The client was seriously injured.
Client I
• Client I was injured at work when she was
run into by a cart of chickens. She inhaled
chicken blood. The employer promised to
pay for an ambulance. The employer got
her social security disability until the
worker’s comp statutes of limitations ran,
and she could no longer go to court and
file for damages.
Client J
• This case has one of the longest
“lifespans” of the clinic. Client J fell
between the floorboards in a mushroom
plant. He hung upside down for half an
hour before he was able to get out. He
was fired after his injury because his
immigration papers had expired. The
clinic had been trying to settle the case
since 2003.
Key Examples
Sometimes Collaboration is a Good
Thing
• Client A
– Research was done an whether a juvenile
who was declared delinquent could also be
declared dependent. See Westlaw Search Maire - 6-13-04
– An expert suspected that this was a matter of
PA practice. See Phone Call with Juvenile
law center 11-24-04
Listservs
• Client D
– email from listserv member to expert FF
forwarded to lauren 10-13-2004
Sometimes collaboration NOT
such a good thing
• Client D
– Who told you that? A summer student relied on the
advice of an expert which was later found to be incorrect.
– memo re phone call to examinations unit
– memo re phone call with AILA attorney expert 85 1021-04
• In this case it was not that the collaboration per se was bad, but
the expert seemed to expect that the students would have done
more “homework” on their own before coming to the expert for
assistance.
Sometimes collaboration NOT
such a good thing
Client B
• Prior students are consulted. They mention
an expert whose article they placed in the
files. The current students note at a meeting
that the expert is worth pursuing.
• However, they have not yet read the expert's
article! They are relying solely on the word of
the prior students - "I guess we will read the
article before we talk to him on Wednesday!"
Research files
• Many of the breakdowns had to do with the “research
files.” This portion of the client file was the only portion
which was not actively regulated by the clinical instructors
and staff.
• Often chaotic
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“this is hopeless”
“this file is a mess”
“made my own file”
“not annotated, so had to start from scratch”
• Client J- Student has difficulty with large file
• Instructor returns with brief "stuck in four feet of
folder"
Research Files
• Annotations were rarely used in the research
files. A couple of the rare instances of
annotation are below:
– article lauren deferred action program 9-26-2004
– article lauren nuts and bolts of family based
immigration ali-aba 9-26-2004
• Often the only "annotation" consisted of
highlighting:
– article- criminal proceedings and the alien
defendant
• Or, underlining:
– Kurzban's Immigration Law Sourcebook no date
• But usually, there was no annotation at all:
– article- questioning barriers to naturalization
Library as last resort
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•
In followup interviews, students indicated
that they used the local clinic library for
most problems.
Only came to library if:
1. time constraint
2. very difficult task (such as legislative history)
3. if information given to them by experts was
not acceptable
Traditional Library Sources
(often recommended by instructor)
• Client A
– Page from Kurzban's Immigration Law
Sourcebook no date
– dunlop hanna pa forms 1-30-04
Preference for electronic format?
• I actually looked at books yesterday! Sarah
exclaims. “When I found the cite I went online and printed
it out.” (Client I)
• However, another student noted that Statutes are hard to
find online,” “It is far easier to look in the books for
statutes
Just the Facts Ma’am
Do existing models of information
behavior accurately reflect
information seeking and use in the
setting of a law school clinic?
What is information behavior?
• Essentially information behavior is how
people interact with information in their
environments.
• Pettigrew et.al. 2001, p. 44
– “the study of how people need, seek, give,
and use information in different contexts,
including the workplace and everyday living.”
What happened in the clinic?
1. Research Files
2. COLLABORATION (consulted
experts/contacts)
3. Library as a last resort.
SenseMaking
•“In the most general sense, sense-making (that which
is the focus of study in the Sense-Making approach) is
defined as behavior, both internal (i.e. cognitive) and
external (i.e. procedural) which allows the individual to
construct and design his/her movement through timespace.
•The term "Sense-Making" is a label for a coherent set
of concepts and methods used…to study how people
construct sense of their worlds and, in particular, how
they construct information needs and uses for
information in the process of sense-making. (Dervin,
1983)
SenseMaking consists of a situation, which causes a gap,
or uncertainty, a bridge to help close the gap, and the
outcome of the SenseMaking process.
Does SenseMaking fit?
• Its general description of a perception of a
gap and seeking help to close the gap
does seem to fit what happened in the
clinic.
• However, in application the assumption of
SenseMaking seems to be that people will
seek help from a library.
• In the clinic, people sought help via more
collaborative means.
Chatman (1996) Small Worlds
• Individuals in their everyday lives construct
“small worlds” which allow members of a
community to conduct their business in a
routine, expected manner.”
• The clinic members seemed to create a
“small world” of trusted contacts (such as
alumni and professors) to whom they
turned for information on a frequent basis.
Bates (1989) Berry Picking
• Challenges traditional
model of user behavior
used for user interfaces:
Berrypicking
• Searching is
like picking
berries in the
woods.
• As the search
progresses,
the nature of
the problem
may change.
Does Berry Picking Fit?
• Print/online/and people all consulted at
various times.
• Non-linear process of consulting a wide
variety of sources of information.
Kuhlthau’s Information Seeking Model
Her Information Search Process Model contains
six stages. At each stage understanding
increases in stages as uncertainty (and feelings
of frustration) decreases.
1. Initiation – Start of the process, characterized by
strong feelings of uncertainty
2. Selection – Choosing the initial general topic
3. Exploration – Investigating to extend personal
understanding and reduce feelings of uncertainty
4. Formulation – Focusing the process
5. Collection – Interacting smoothly with the information
system
6. Presentation – completing the process
Kuhlthau, C., & Tama, S. L. (2001). Information search
process of lawyers: A call for 'just for me' information
services. Journal of Documentation, 57(1), 25-43.
• Many lawyers do not prefer to use legal databases of
any kind. Computer databases required well-specified
requests and did not offer an option for examining a
wide range of information at one time.
• Although there was the expectation that computer
sources would or should make their work easier, and
they considered themselves old fashioned… the print
sources seemed to support their work of constructing a
complex case.
• Need "Just for me" services and systems grounded in a
clear understanding of an individual's work, the different
types of information needed and the range of access
required to accomplish a variety of tasks.
Leckie et.al. (1996) Modeling
Information Seeking of
Professionals
Work roles and tasks
generate information
needs which then
lead to awareness of
information and
searching of sources.
Feedback from the
outcome of the
search then affect
whether additional
searching is
attempted.
Does Leckie Fit?
• Others have criticized this approach:
– argued that the Leckie model does not get to
the heart of how lawyers actually use legal
information.
• Leckie does not seem to address the
phenomena of collaboration observed in the
clinic.
Adapted From: Taylor (1968)
Prenegotiation decisions by the Inquirer
Experiment
(Observe Nature)
Information Need
Ask a Colleague
If no answer:
Personal Files
Search Literature
Library
If no answer:
Ask a Librarian
Self-Help
(negotiation process)
(search strategy)
Does Taylor Fit?
• It is an oldie, but it fits pretty well what
happened in the clinic.
• Flowchart/Decision Tree Process
• It takes into account:
– Consulting personal files
– Collaboration (ask a colleague)
– Mediation (go to a library- often as a last resort!)
Improvements?
• Changes were made to the legal research
instruction classes for the clinic.
– Instruction done during first orientation
sessions.
– One class expanded to three.
– More focus on the library.
• More emphasis on organizing and
annotating the research files.