Use of IT in Trial Preparation

In preparation for trial (including discovery), particularly where there are large numbers of documents to be examined, greater use could be made, both by solicitors and barristers, of what are generally referred to as litigation support systems. These enable legal advisers to manage and control documents more effectively, using a variety of underlying technologies (including document indexing, document image processing and full text retrieval). These technologies are widely and successfully used in the United States, Canada and Australia and have been cited by United States attorneys as a reason for equivalent litigation costing less in the United States than in England. I strongly encourage solicitors and barristers who have little experience of these technologies to familiarise themselves with their capabilities. The use of such systems will, in any event, soon be expected by clients with any degree of IT sophistication.

The Woolf Report 1995