Moving from paper-based to digital documents: case study of public defenders using case management and legal research tools

The paper presents a study of the influence of computers on job productivity, job satisfaction and quality of work. Results of a combined qualitative and quantitative study of the use of personal computers (PC)s in a public defender (PD)'s office in Los Angeles County (USA) for legal research and case management me discussed. A survey was administrated to 56 PDs and 25 qualitative interviews were completed. It is concluded that the expedient fashion in which legal documents must be prepared in the criminal courts lends itself well to the acceptance of computer innovation by the PDs, and that this innovation requires a reskilling of the professional role of a PD.