7Safe is holding an eDiscovery networking event on Thursday 15 April at The Hoxton Hotel, 81 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3HU at 6.30pm.

It is to mark the official launch of their hosting of Anacomp’s CaseLogistix, one of the document review tools which was used by Anton Valukas, the examiner responsible for the recent report into the collapse of Lehman Brothers (see my articles about the Lehman Report and about the alliance between 7Safe and Anacomp).

I have a two interests in going, since both 7Safe and Anacomp are sponsors of the eDisclosure Information Project, and a third if you count the fact that I am speaking at the event. I see that the invitation is careful to distinguish between that part of the evening and the “fun” which is to be provided along with the refreshments.

If “fun” slightly overstates the entertainment value to be derived from listening to me talking, these are certainly interesting times, as I hope I will make clear. It may be premature to suggest in March that Senior Master Whitaker’s judgment in Goodale & Ors v The Ministry of Justice & Ors [2009] EWHC B41 (QB) (05 November 2009) is the e-Disclosure judgment of the year, but it certainly puts pressure on those who think that they can simply ignore electronic documents as being too difficult or too expensive to handle.

That may well prove to be the case upon examination, but you must have that examination – that is, you must be prepared to explain why it is not necessary or proportionate to disclose things which clearly fall within the definition of a document. That means weighing their likely value as evidence against the cost of extracting and reviewing them. You cannot simply aver that it is too expensive to manage electronic documents electronically without some idea of what litigation applications can do and what they cost.

My subject is the eDisclosure aspects of the Jackson Report and my main focus will be on what Lord Justice Jackson said about the use of technology. Master Whitaker’s judgment is a model for the case management which Lord Justice Jackson urged in his report. CaseLogistix is a good example of a review application and one which 7Safe has built into a set of processes which, as their invitation says, goes from collection to production. An evening at The Hoxton Hotel seems as good a way as any of finding out what is involved in meeting the expectations which have been flagged up by both the Jackson Report and the Goodale judgment.

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