A paralegal has an ethical obligation to conduct competent electronic research in order to obtain the rights answers to issues involved in the research study. Using electronic research means searching for answers to questions by using computer data bases of information (Delaney, 2009). There are several potential consequences of inept electronic research practices such as lack of information in doing research may lead to inaccurate results and looking at unfamiliar areas of research may become time-consuming. It is important for the researchers to understand the types of information that can be found in traditional and electronic references and to be able to analyze the relationships between the information retrieved (Shimpock, 2016).
The State Reporter and Federal Reporter are regarded as part of the electronic references at present because they are the official law reports which contain the opinions, rulings and orders of the Supreme Court that cannot be accessed online. On the other hand, West Encyclopedia Legal is another electronic source that provides a clear explanation on the current issues that deal with Americans with Disabilities Act, domestic violence, women and children’s rights, lesbian, gay and transgender rights, and even death penalty (Delaney, 2009).Unlike the traditional sources, these references can be easily accessed online which makes researching for paralegals and lawyers to be more convenient. Since the field of legal research is continuously changing, there are several websites that of legal research tools for paralegals, lawyers and law students to become abreast of the latest research information or data that they need in solving cases. Some of these research tools make use of computer databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis that provide statutes, regulations, case law and secondary sources that may be useful to help paralegals to draw intelligent conclusions (Delaney, 2009).
One advantage of using traditional resource materials is that they are the printed materials that are readily available in the libraries and the detailed information regarding the source including the name of the author, organization of the author and the publisher of such work. At the same time, traditional sources are considered more accurate than the electronic references since they have gone through extensive publication process and reviews before they were published. The quality of traditional sources is considered of high quality since they have passed through a number of editors, multiple reviewers, and fact-checkers before they are published. Another advantage of traditional sources is that the external information and direct quotation can easily be identified since they are properly marked and highlighted which makes researching easier. The traditional sources have high quality standards of publication compared to online references since they contain multiple typographical errors and some of the facts are misleading or deceptive.
There are also disadvantages in using traditional resource materials such as the biases involved among publishers who are profit-oriented and they cater only to a few number of special interest groups. However, in the case of electronic sources some of the websites can be deceptive and merely persuasive. There had been several reported incidents of online texts that provide inaccurate and misleading information. More often than not, the name of the author and purpose of a website cannot always be determined since the background and qualifications of the author are not always given. It is difficult for the paralegals to determine the authorship and affiliations of the news articles published on the Internet, which is not the case of traditional sources.
References:
Delaney, S. (2009). Electronic Legal Research: An Integrated Approach. New York: Delmar Cengage.
Shimpock, K.E. (2016). Business Research Handbook: Methods and Sources for Lawyers and Business. New York: Wolters Kluwer.
