Abstract
This article examines the information seeking and evaluative behavior of attorneys as they search the corpus of law for primary authority in order to solve context sensitive legal issues. First, the dynamic mental models attorneys construct of the law as expressed in its published artifacts is explored. The relevance judgment of cases is then explicated in terms of these models. The conclusion reached is that relevance judgments shift along a knowledge continuum depending on the status of the attorney's mental model, and that the factors underlying these judgments are complex, multidimensional, and knowable. Current empirical research into the retrieval effectiveness of two full-text legal databases is evaluated in light of the behavioral theory and mental models developed. The implications of attorney information seeking behavior for future information retrieval system design for this domain are also explored. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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