DIGITAL COMPETENCIES OF LEGAL PRACTITIONERS OF LAHORE HIGH COURT BAR ASSOCIATION (LHCBA)

Abstract

Legal practitioners deal with information in their profession. The searching, finding, organizing, sorting, keeping, and evaluating legal information & knowledge are crucial for their profession and legal entity. It is, therefore important to explore their digital competencies as the expertise of digital skills is indispensable for their professional development. The study has been conducted to investigate the digital competencies of registered members of LHCBA towards their Information Communication Technology (ICT) skills in legal research. The population of this study was the practicing lawyers/advocates who were also registered with the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA). The response rate of the survey was 77.57%. The data was collected through a questionnaire which was then analyzed through SPSS version 17.0 to reach the conclusions. Findings of the study reveal that majority of the respondents use a variety of legal information sources to fulfill their information needs. Legal textbooks, Law Journals, and Pakistan Law Site are considered the most. Most of the legal practitioners prefer to have their information in print format. They also use computers and the internet while performing their research activities and retrieval of information. The results show that use of LHCBA library and the ICT skills have an impact on their practices. The study recommends that respondents need better and comprehensive digital resources. Free and easy access to digital resources is necessary which is very expensive and difficult. Findings and recommendations of this study can be a helpful source for the library practitioners, educationists, organizational heads, HEC Pakistan, planners, policy makers and the decision making bodies.