Jackson joins the IT crowd

In 2006 a very IT literate barrister colleague who was working with computer forensics experts organised a talk from them to an assembly of judges. They were increasingly seeing cases involving potentially large amounts of technical and digital information. The barrister was concerned that too often the parties in court would “fudge” the issue of electronic data and what their clients would be able to produce for the court, variously asserting technical difficulties or the sheer unmanageable quantity or nature of their client’s data as excuses for not producing all or even any of it. The host and prime organiser—a certain Lord Justice Jackson.

It has been interesting to see over the subsequent years how he has taken this subject on and given it some direction in the wider context of civil litigation.

Uncertainty

To date the place of digital, or Electronically Stored Information (ESI) in the litigation process has been somewhat uncertain and has depended, in large