On 20 October, Huron Legal, in conjunction with Zenith Chambers and with me, will be talking about the disclosure and evidence in Leeds with in a session entitled Documents win cases!
The event starts at 4:00pm with a panel discussion and ends with a reception at 6:00pm.
This is not a pure technology event. The focus is on documents-as-evidence, on the perils of non-compliance with rules and, the corollary to that, the benefits of being on top of both the evidence and the rules.
The speakers are Jonathan Maas of Huron Legal, Gordon Exall of Zenith Chambers and me. Jonathan Maas is a technology expert, but he has also for a long time been involved in devising practical procedures which comply with the rules, minimise costs and encourage discussion about proportionality. Gordon Exall is a specialist in personal injury litigation, but he has done perhaps more than anybody to focus attention on the procedural requirements applicable to all litigation with his excellent Civil Litigation Brief. I have served my time as both litigating lawyer and technology developer and consultant, and was a member of Senior Master Whitaker’s working party which drafted Practice Direction 31B and the Electronic Documents Questionnaire.
Between us, we aim to cover a range of topics which consider good ediscovery practice in a way which goes beyond mere recital of the rules.
The event description, which you will find here, refers to Smailes-v-McNally, a case in which a £50 million claim was lost because of failure to comply with the eDisclosure rules. Other cases have emphasised the importance of contemporaneous evidence as a buttress for (or challenge to) witness evidence, and we are seeing cases which involve non-traditional sources of information such as chat and social media.
The event description has a link to a registration form. We very much look forward to seeing you there.
A similar event is planned for 22 October at Hardwicke Chambers in London. Details will be published shortly.
