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 agriculture-related 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:

• 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 forwa

rded to lauren 10-13-2004

Sometimes collaboration NOTsuch 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 10-21-0

4• 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 NOTsuch 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– “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

• 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.  “W

hen 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 time-space. •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 topic3. Exploration – Investigating to extend personal

understanding and reduce feelings of uncertainty4. Formulation – Focusing the process5. Collection – Interacting smoothly with the information

system6. 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

Information Need

Experiment(Observe Nature)

Ask a Colleague

Search LiteraturePersonal Files Library

If no answer:

Ask a Librarian(negotiation process)

Self-Help(search strategy)

If no answer:

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.