Law firms need to adopt 'strategic thinking' when it comes to information technology services in their law libraries or they risk swamping staff with too much information, leading firms have warned.

Derek Southall, strategic development director at Birmingham and London firm Wragge & Co, predicted that firms would face a 'paradigm shift' in the demand for legal information from their staff.


'The future will probably bring much more emphasis on data being fed into law firm and client systems rather than lawyers having to visit publishers' discrete Web sites,' he said. 'Information will become more aligned with actual tasks and processes and will need to be coded accordingly; it marks a true move towards contextual content.'


But Mr Southall added: 'Getting there will involve some high-quality strategic thinking for both the on-line publishers and their clients. The mission is to make information support - rather than swamp - lawyers.'


Anne Hemming, director of training and know-how at Welsh firm Hugh James, agreed the more successful law library IT systems are more focused on practice areas and are feeding information through practice area portals. '[This] enables lawyers to access relevant information in a context-specific way,' she explained.


However, Ms Hemming said she doubted traditional bookshelves in law libraries would be replaced with computers. 'There is still a big commitment to print - it is human nature. Some things aren't easy to read on screen, so we are not going to get rid of the books,' she added.