Information and communication technologies as a means to increase the professional skills of law students
Authors: Romaniv Khrystyna 
Published: January 2021

Problem definition. Modern legal activities are inextricably linked with ICT, and therefore information culture as acomponent of professional legal consciousness of a law student is no less relevant, since new generation of legalprofessionals must efficiently apply the acquired knowledge, influence development of democratic, rule-of-law state andcivil society.ICT contributes to formation of a unified European educational space and professional growth of future lawyers. Inaddition, accelerating the pace of information creation and dissemination allows a law student to expand their intellectualpotential. After all, a lawyer faces processing of large amounts of legal information in the professional activity, which isassociated with various legal facts, offenses and their overcoming, various legal relations and law and order. To resolvequickly legal situations, a lawyer has to use ICT aiming at assistance in systematization and provision of quick access tolegal information. Accordingly, it is today important to teach a law student not only basic legal knowledge, but also theability to respond quickly and find solutions to various legal situations.
Analysis of the last researches and publications. The issue of professional skills formation in law students usingICT has not been elaborated in scientific literature. However, some authors are close to the topic we have chosen bydisclosing such issues as: ICT use in education and legal in particular. Such researchers include: B. Hershunskyi,R. Hurevych, V. Zelinska, M. Kademiia, М. Kozer, V. Lusha, N. Lohinova, S. Netiosova, N. Rusina, І. Savchenko,О. Fedorchuk, М. Sherman, S. Shyika, О. Shmyrov et al.
Article objective. Elaboration of ICT importance as a tool for learning the law through establishment of stages oflaw student’s professional skills formation.
Article’s main body. Professionalism is formed primarily through education, therefore a professional lawyer is aself-establishment in the field of law through knowledge and skills. The literature analysis showed that the importance ofinformation and communication technologies as a law knowledge tool can be revealed by establishing the stages of formationof professional skills of law student, in particular: 1) preparation, receipt, collection and exchange of legal informationduring learning; 2) expanding the range of cognitive activity; 3) formation of legal knowledge, their preservation;4) formation of legal thinking in a law student; 5) formation of moral and legal ideals of the future lawyer; 6) emergenceof research and practical skills.It is revealed that the emergence of research and practical skills is evidence of information and legal competence,which is the basis of professional skills of the future lawyer. Legal competency means a set of professional knowledge related to legal information, a variety of application software skills and information skills to use the ICT to solve differentprofessional problems.
Conclusions and prospects for the development. It is proved that the ICT in the preparation of law students helpsto increase the professional capacity of a young specialist to perform future legal activities and leads to enrichment ofpedagogical and organizational activity of higher educational institutions with the following opportunities: extension ofthe information component of the professional skills of the law student, which is possible through the computer use andis manifested in the following: timeliness in obtaining complete and reliable information, minimizing time when seekinglegal information; ability to process significant volumes of legal information, ability to use different types of legalinformation source, ability to create their own databases of legal information; improvement of practical skills throughmodeling of different legal situations or their computer visualization, which may arise in professional activity; expansionof orientation skills, which is the speed of responding to changes and additions in the current legislation, ability to finduseful legal information in the short term; improvement of analytical skills through continuous monitoring of legalinformation and speeding up the transfer of legal experience.