The Flood, the Channels and the Dykes: Managing Legal Information in a Globalized and Digital World

Information search and retrieval are part of daily routines of the legal profession. Lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and legal clerks usually access a number of electronic resources to browse, search, select, or update legal contents. Legal databases have currently become large digital libraries where the tasks related to information-seeking may sometimes be cumbersome. Adding semantics to support information search may provide significant results in terms of efficiency, efficacy, and user satisfaction. Semantic technologies may be able to improve legal information search in the judicial and lawyers' domains. However, legal professionals sometimes prefer following routines than changing their information search behavior. New trends in legal ontologies and Semantic Web technologies may help to improve both professional and laymen's skills. © 2009 The authors and IOS Press