eDiscovery blogs in South Africa and New Zealand were recognised in Feedspot’s recent list of Top 60 Global eDiscovery Blogs. The South African one is by Terry Harrison who wrote about the recognition here; the New Zealand one comes from Andrew King whose equivalent post is here.

When I first started getting involved in eDiscovery / eDisclosure in the UK, Terry Harrison was one of the first people I came across. We gave several presentations together, not least in Manchester.

A few years ago, Terry Harrison moved to South Africa and set up an eDiscovery consulting practice there. In addition to his work for clients, Terry threw himself into the subject of civil procedure rules reform in South Africa, making the case for eDiscovery rules changes designed to bring technology and proportionality together in civil proceedings.

Recognition in a US eDiscovery list is no small achievement for someone practicing in a jurisdiction so unfamiliar with the concepts of eDiscovery which are developing in the rest of the common law world.

Andrew King’s eDiscovery practice in New Zealand has, like Terry Harrison’s in South Africa, been an increasingly increasingly authoritative voice in a small common law jurisdiction, not least through his annual conference there called LawFest, taking place this year on 8 March.

There is an increasing willingness for rule-makers and others in different jurisdictions to take note of what happens elsewhere and to import ideas from elsewhere. The US no longer assumes that everyone else’s system is just like theirs but smaller, and is increasingly willing to look elsewhere for ideas. England and Wales, long looked to as the origin of common law developments, now takes its place with others – Ireland and Victoria, for example, where new thinking is set to influence others.

There are good commercial reasons why software developers should welcome new eDiscovery developments in South Africa and New Zealand. These are new potential markets, and people like Terry Harrison and Andrew King are the ones who will open the doors.