“Part 2 of LiST’s Data Exchange Protocol says that adherence to the Protocol “may require a party to enlist the expertise of an external consultant”. That is what I do, and is both my reason for writing about this area and the qualification for doing so. I mention it at the beginning, rather than shyly slipping it in at the end, because the availability of such services, and the fact that you can rent litigation software, host it externally and outsource the scanning and coding, means that anyone engaged in document-heavy litigation can compete on equal terms with the large firms whose experts wrote the Data Exchange Protocol.

What follows is therefore a summary of LiST’s Data Exchange Protocol for the benefit of those who may not have in-house expertise or software but who are receptive to the idea that their clients’ interests, and their own commercial interests, lie in competing for document-heavy dispute work with large and technically-proficient firms, and in doing it cost-effectively.”

This is an extract from my commentary on Part 2 of LiST’s Data Exchange Protocol, which came out at the end of April.

LiST – the Litigation Support Technology Group – is a think-tank formed in 2003 by a group of litigation support specialists with the aim of encouraging uniformity of approach to the use of technology in litigation and alternative dispute resolution. Their purpose is to reduce the time and costs involved in handling documents.

Links to my commentaries:

The LiST Data Exchange Protocol

Part 1 of the List Data Exchange Protocol – Disclosure Documents

Part 2 of the LiST Data Exchange Protocol – Disclosure Data

Chris Dale Lawyer Support main web site

Link to LiST

LiST’s Publications page