[LINK] e-discovery Practice Note No 17

[Tom Worthington]

At 12:46 PM 18/02/2009, Tom Koltai wrote:
>>... Tom Worthington ... Federal Court of Australia ... "The use of 
>>technology in the management of discovery and the conduct of 
>>litigation" ... <http://www.fedcourt.gov.au/how/practice_notes_cj17.htm>.
>
>... WOW. Australian legal firms are going to have an interesting few 
>transitional months. ...

The lawyers can't really complain, they have had plenty of warning. 
This practice note was first mooted about a year ago and is an update 
of one from 2000. There have been numerous presentations by computer 
companies, consultants and for lawyers about what was coming in 
Australia with e-discovery. Also it is not all that different in 
principle to the USA (but the Australian approach is better): 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/08/us-courts-federal-e-discovery-rules.html>.

>conseqiuentely, lots of opportunities for consultants....

Yes, and scope for people, such as myself, who run courses to train 
the consultants: <http://cecs.anu.edu.au/students/flu_b/SATOMGI_module_D> ;-)

My students at ANU in COMP3410 will know what to do as they had a 
tutorial question on it last year: 
<http://cs.anu.edu.au/Student/comp3410/tutslabs/tutorial-2/tutorial-2.html>.

>It would appear to me that unfortunately, much of our legal profession
>is still in the stone age. ...

The federal court already has a pragmatically designed eCourt system: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/07/australian-electronic-court-system.html>. 
So lawyers can't be completely unfamiliar with technology. One of my 
Green ICT students works for a government legal organisation and it 
will be interesting to see what they have to say.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University