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Introduction
IT for Disclosure?
Parent page(s): Home Introduction IT for Disclosure?
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The Documents as a River A graphical representation of the flow of documents in a case might show it as a river which starts with a trickle of documents supplied by the client at the outset, is liable to an occasional spate as the client finds another box of papers, surges at Disclosure stage and becomes a flood when the documents disclosed by other parties have been inspected. After this point the flood subsides as the irrelevant and unimportant documents drain away, as the issues crystallise and as appeals are fought on narrower issues requiring fewer documents On the way the stream branches, as instructions to counsel, material for experts' reports or witness statements and exhibits for affidavits require different ranges of documents. Selection for such a purpose does not take a document out of the main stream - on the contrary, those identified as important for an affidavit are likely to be the most significant. Any one document may acquire several different legal and administrative labels as time goes on - the client's file number, the solicitor's storage box or shelf number, the number in the list of document, a page number in an exhibit index, a trial bundle page reference and so on. At any stage it may be necessary to cross-refer between the various lists in which a document has had a place. More importantly, it may be necessary to find the source copy of a particular document at short notice. It is helpful (and often essential) to be able to find whole classes of documents by reference to something about them - something which may or not have been identified as important when the list of documents was made, perhaps in a document discarded earlier without its importance being noticed. Brute Force and Ignorance Much of the job can be done, eventually, by throwing resources at it. Teams of secretaries can type up lists and number them manually. Trainees can be set to identifying every document relevant to a particular point (no-one will ever know, of course, whether they really have found every one). Meanwhile, your opponent is paying his teams to replicate your work and is copy-typing part of your list to merge in with his. The Best Tool for the Job? Given the number of times a document might have to be listed, formally or informally, in the course of an action, the word-processor is the wrong tool to use. It gives little advantage over the typewriter. The most efficient tool is a purpose-designed database. Fewer keystrokes are required to put the basic information into a database. Once there, it need never be typed again and can be re-used for different purposes throughout the case. A database will hold the information in a structured form, sorting electronically into any order you choose, and printing out the items you need for a particular purpose. A database can also generate a number to show where each item comes in that particular list. That is exactly what is involved in producing all the lists which the Rules, and the practicalities of litigation, require. In any case which runs beyond Disclosure, the List of Documents is not an end in itself but merely one of several formal stages at which a schedule of documents must be put on paper during the course of an action. The formal obligations involve tasks which can take a great deal of work if the lists are long and the timetable tight. Since a list is usually a variant, an expansion or an abbreviation of others which have been prepared, shouldn't more lawyers let their computer take the strain whilst they concentrate on the client, the issues and the tactics? Chris Dale Chris has been working on litigation support software for over 10 years. The software is marketed under the name Openlaw. Openlaw is low cost litigation support software, priced by the matter, designed to help litigators meet their post-Woolf obligations in the most cost-effective manner. |
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