At last, I have come to the attention of the US Department of Justice.
Though some of you may have suspected me for some time, I am going to have to 
disappoint you! Someone in the DOJ has found my blog and last week spent more time reading more pages than anyone else on that particular day. Now, I do not know why the DOJ has become interested in a blog on the subject of e-discovery written by a former litigation partner at a large international law firm but the knowledge that he or she had looked at the blog led me to think about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and our own Bribery Act 2010.
We have been used to acting for lawyers and their clients for some time in relation to FCPA cases and clients in this country will have to get used to handling regulatory investigations and prosecutions which may arise in future under the new legislation which received the Royal Assent on 8th April as part of the wash up procedure at the end of the last Parliament.
Continue reading ‘Bribery and corruption’
Which is the odd one out in the list below?
- There’s no place like ASDA
- You shop, we drop
- Your M&S
- Law firm goes public
- Buy one get one free – (BOGOF)
- Every little helps!
Like all good quiz questions, there is a catch. In fact, there is no odd one out.
They are all supermarket strap lines and while you may have thought the reference to the law firm was a clue that this one was the odd one out, it is in fact a nod in the direction of what has become known as Tesco Law and one possible effect of the Legal Services Act 2007 the provisions of which come into force in 2010 and 2011.
Continue reading ‘Supermarket Law’
If you are a political junkie, the past few weeks have been exhilarating. Messrs Cleese, Idle, Palin et al could not have made it up!
In a few short days, we have moved from a tired, outdated, enfeebled ragbag of New Labour politicians with nothing but sarcasm and invective to offer to the first peace time coalition containing a Liberal politician for almost 90 years.
Like it or not, the electorate clearly decided that while they wanted to be rid of the Prince of Darkness (aka Lord Rumba of Rio), Brown, Balls and Harperson, they were not prepared to give untrammelled power to Cameron, Hague and Kitten Heels. What is more, they also decided that Cleggy and Cable were not the answer either. All that talk in the debates about the new wonder of British politics resulted in a net loss of 5 seats! A plague on the old parties was rightly rejected by the electorate, not least because the Liberals have been around for considerably longer than the Labour Party!
Continue reading ‘And now for something completely different’
Sir Humphrey: Now go in there and inform me of their conversation.
Bernard Woolley: I’m not sure I can do that, Sir Humphrey. It might be confidential.
Sir Humphrey: Bernard, the matter at issue is the defence of the realm and the stability of the government.
Bernard Woolley: But you only need to know things on a need to know basis.
Sir Humphrey: I need to know everything! How else can I judge whether or not I need to know it?
Bernard Woolley: So that means you need to know things even when you don’t need to know. You need to know them not because you need to know them, but because you need to know whether or not you need to know. And if you don’t need to know you still need to know, so that you know there is no need to know.
…
So, how do we know what we need to know in the field of e-Discovery? Busy litigation lawyers have not got the luxury afforded to Sir Humphrey of a Bernard to put it all into context. There are numerous sources available but where are they?
Pride of place must go to the CPR and recent judgments although it is as well to be aware of the influence of the individuals and bodies we have chosen to call the ‘movers and shakers’.
Continue reading ‘The need to know’
What a few months it has been!
I am not talking about erupting volcanoes and disrupted airline schedules, the General Election (although I see from Twitter that “Doing a Rochdale” is likely to rank highly in the litany of public gaffes alongside President Ford’s “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” and Gerald Ratner’s less than flattering description of his jewellery), the Greek economic crisis (now extended to Portugal and Spain, where next?) or the debacle over swine flu, the “pandemic” which never was (the use of the word was unnecessary and silly, designed to cause fear and anxiety).
For once, I mean something more prosaic and mainstream, although as someone with an interest in e-disclosure, I have to admit that I have found it quite exciting!
Continue reading ‘The name and shame blame game’
According to research carried out by me wholly unscientifically, I discovered that “to win the battle and lose the war” appears in a treatise entitled “The Art of War” written by military strategist Sun-Tzu in the 6th century BC.
Sun-Tzu may not have been a real figure but his existence is given credibility by the fact that others have repeatedly quoted from his treatise from the period of his supposed existence to the 19th and 20th centuries.
He was reputedly a general in the armies of King He Lu, the King of the Wu province of China and there is one legend about Sun Tzu which amused me. You can find the story in Wikipedia but, to whet your appetite, it concerns the king testing Sun-Tzu’s skills as a general by commanding him to train a harem of 180 concubines and turn them into soldiers. I will leave you to read it and enjoy, as they say!
Continue reading ‘Winning the battle and losing the war’
What clients want is a fence at the top of the cliff rather than an ambulance at the bottom.
Richard Susskind’s analogy, accompanied by the appropriate slide, the contents of which I will leave to your imagination, was one of a number of catchy themes he used to describe the changing world of legal services last week at the Commercial Litigators’ Forum.
What came to mind as he spoke was an image of Starship Enterprise and a reminder of the most celebrated split infinitive in the entire universe. Whilst the opening credits of Star Trek talk of the ship’s mission “to boldly go where no man has gone before”, back on earth my mind was on the bold new frontiers facing those engaged in the business of litigation.
Continue reading ‘To boldly go’
Slaughter & May hosted the latest meeting of the Commercial Litigators’ Forum on March 17th. The theme of the evening was “Litigating in the 21st Century” and there was a huge turn out.
Perhaps this was not surprising as the speakers were Professor Richard Susskind OBE and Robert Graham-Campbell of Maitland Chambers.
The aim of the seminar was “to provide clients with an overview of the implications for the traditional litigation model of Lord Justice Jackson’s Civil Litigation Costs Review, developments in the outsourcing market and the proposed introduction of alternative business structures such as Legal Disciplinary Partnerships and Barrister-only Partnerships”.
Any clients attending were, I suspect, the happier bunch at the end of the evening as the lawyers’ traditional model took something of a hammering despite spirited opposition from the floor at question time.
Continue reading ‘Litigating in the 21st Century’
The model and author Sophie Dahl, probably most famous not for being Roald Dahl’s grand-daughter but for her traffic stopping billboard appearances in an Opium ad for Yves St Laurent, is about to star in her own television series starting on BBC 2 on March 23rd at 8.30pm.
“The Delicious Miss Dahl” (and that is the title of the series and not just my opinion!) is to become the latest television cook as a result of the success of “Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights” (that’s the title of the book and not only my view. Do keep awake at the back!!).
Those of us who enjoy our food, both the eating and the cooking, are used to watching the sensual Nigella Lawson in her kitchen, and Sophie Dahl’s new show promises to be another visual and culinary delight.
Continue reading ‘Stevie is my dahling’
It happened to me again this morning! You will all be familiar with the scenario. You wait in the cold for many minutes for the one bus which will take you to your destination and having got thoroughly miserable and frustrated, not one but two buses turn up together.
It seems like that in the world of e-discovery!
In the last week, the judgment in Goodale v Ministry of Justice has been published and, excitingly, so has the draft of the Technology Questionnaire, currently in a subcommittee of the Rules Committee.
Continue reading ‘It never rains..’
