UK e-Disclosure Project Update and Its Application to the US


edisclosureListen to Karl Schieneman, Director of Analytics and Review with JurInnov talk with Senior Master Whitacker of the Senior Courts of England and Wales in the Queen’s Bench Division and Chris Dale, a well-known technology consultant, blogger, former solicitor and the person who runs the e-Disclosure project in the UK. Together, these are two of the most influential people in the UK in what we refer to in the U.S. as e-Discovery.

Senior Master Whitaker is the UK equivalent of Judge Grimm or Facciola and last year authored a decision called Goodale v. Ministry of Justice. This decision is quite important as an example of how a judge can step in and actively push the parties to work together to come to a fair resolution on how to find and produce ESI. It also stands as a great example of judicial acceptance and promotion of using advanced analytics and technology to find ESI that would otherwise be daunting to find with a manual, key word driven, or brute force review.

Together they work on a project called the e-Disclosure Project.  The e-Disclosure Project has many aspects including a model ESI Questionnaire that assists parties in agreeing on how ESI should be handled in their dispute.  The ESI Questionnaire helps to analyze the proportionate impact the ESI has to the case compared to what is at stake in the matter. The Goodale opinion attached an ESI Questionnaire, which came out of this project, to the judgment.

Since the UK struggles with issues just like the U.S. does when trying to figure out this ESI mess, why not look to some of the best minds the UK has to offer for ideas on what we can or should be doing in the U.S.? It’s the power of the Internet that allows us to easily peer into their process and identify if there are any good ideas there worth emulating. Personally, I believe there are and I am thrilled to give these two experts a platform to share what they see and think about the challenges of e-Discovery.

Recorded 04/04/2011