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New model order: falling short?

16 May 2025 / Mary Young
Issue: 8116 / Categories: Features , Fraud , Technology , Privilege
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The new model search & imaging order lacks the clarity needed for the digital age, argues Mary Young
  • The revised model search and imaging order brings a much-needed upgrade, but it leaves unresolved gaps around privilege, cloud-based data and enforcement.
  • This article examines what’s changed, what hasn’t and why supervising solicitors still face uncertainty.

In January 2024, I wrote about why the standard format search and imaging orders needed an upgrade to make them fit for purpose in a world where most documentary evidence is in digital form and much of that is stored on cloud-based systems (‘Civil fraud: it’s time for a digital upgrade’, 174 NLJ 8056, p11). My concerns arose in relation to certain gaps in the process that could give rise to uncertainties, in particular in respect of decisions that might need to be made by anyone appointed as a supervising solicitor under a search and/or imaging order.

On 6 April 2025, a new model search and imaging order came into force. The

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

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NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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