It may come as a surprising question to those of us who are immersed in such things but we are quite often asked to spell out the advantages of using e-discovery over paper-based methods. This is a particularly common question when the end-client is not overly familiar with litigious matters and naturally wants to feel comfortable that the additional costs spent at the outset on processing will be cost effective in the long run.

My starting assumption is that most lawyers are reviewing documents in a linear, document by document basis. Another key fact/assumption is that it is not faster or otherwise more efficient to review documents onscreen versus those in hard-copy form. This may sound contentious but our clients generally report that it is faster to review hard copy than it is to review onscreen – although this is somewhat dependent on the personal preferences and IT skills of the reviewer.

Then, there is the cost of acquisition, which can be justifiable deterrent to electronic review where the source documents to be reviewed are in paper format. The costs of scanning and coding hard copy documents are typically in the range of £0.40-£0.50 per page compared to £0.01 per page for the equivalent electronic documents – i.e. 40 to 50 times the cost! So, the benefits are lower and the costs higher where the documents are hard-copy as opposed to electronic and it therefore comes down to weighing up all of the benefits of using e-discovery, versus the costs. Continue reading →

On the flyleaf of a book given to me by a friend appear the words “…I hope this book brings on an afflatus rather than a Winchester Goose….”

If you are anything like me, you will not immediately understand where the donor is coming from. Indeed, I had to look up the words in the very same book (The Superior Person’s Book of Words by Peter Bowler, first published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury in 2002) before I got the joke.

If you want to know the meaning of zzxjoanw, nepheligenous or thaumaturge you will need to refer to Mr Bowler’s entertaining book, available on Amazon and in good bookshops everywhere. I know what you will be thinking! He has lost his marbles, spent too much time overindulging or is suffering from sunstroke (on the Sussex coast, in October?) The weather was blistering but…

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“I get it entirely when you say we should not print out electronic data”, said the trainee who approached me at the end of a recent training session, but, and here she blushed, “what do I say to the partner who insists that I print out the contents of a CD or hard drive?”

It is a very good question. The trainee was right to ask it and there was no need at all to feel embarrassed about it. It is a common problem and illustrates the sometimes yawning gap between the theory and the practice of electronic document management.

The technology in this area has improved exponentially over the past 10 years. The speed and reliability have improved and the cost has plummeted. The problem arises where lawyers think they prefer to use paper rather than work electronically.

How do you persuade a client or a lawyer that they should work electronically when so may appear to prefer to deal with paper with all its imperfections?

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