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Not unlike explorers, lawyers also experience challenges in making their discoveries and within a decade, firms have increasingly shunned paper-based discovery methods in favour of electronic aids. ALB finds that ediscovery systems are capable of a lot more than just searching through documents
Discovery can arguably represent a significant part of a legal matter and only 10 years ago, a large discovery was considered to involve tens of thousands of documents. Nowadays, however, a major one is considered to amount in the hundreds of thousands.
According to Elaw founder and executive director Allison Stanfield, ediscovery is changing rapidly and these days, an enormous amount of electronic data is created – in e-mails particularly. “There are a lot more electronic documents in their native format that are required to be discovered and presented at trial, and this is what is causing a lot of issues for lawyers and their clients,” she says.
In fact, the federal court just released a practice note which essentially mandates the use of electronic discovery, and this will create a greater need for firms to enlist the services of experts in the field. According to Stanfield – whose company provided services for the HIH and Building and Construction Industries Royal Commissions – the team at elaw has some of the most in-depth experience in ediscovery solutions in Australia.
Traditionally, firms would undertake paper-based discovery and this would involve allocating staff to search filing cabinets. These days, however, firms are often dealing directly with client in-house counsel and IT departments to collect documents from their computer systems. “On one hand it’s making life easier, but on the other, there’s a lot more evidence to go through when a party is involved in litigation because 100% of all documents are created in electronic format,” she adds.
Allens Arthur Robinson director of applied legal technology Beth Patterson agrees. “We helped our clients prepare for ediscovery proactively by utilising technology that searches out and collects data on their IT systems. We use data maps, which allow them to know quickly where documents are, in the event of litigation,” she says.
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