5 Notable Litigation Technology Trends

Editor’s Note: The author of this post is the U.K.-based founder of Opus 2, an international legal services and software development firm. Below, he lays out five key insights into litigation technology trends in the legal industry.

By Graham Smith-Bernal, Opus 2 Founder & CEO

The primary trends in litigation technology.

Right now, it’s a really fast-changing canvas; there are a lot of things that are having a direct impact on litigation on a global level. I think the most obvious trend is cloud-based technology: cloud-based tools that are specifically designed for use by lawyers, that are becoming increasingly simple and easy to use, and that help even the most technophobic lawyers to work hands on. Some of these tools that are being developed are seemingly new to the US market, but they are actually quite mature in markets like the U.K. and Singapore.

The adoption of cloud-based technology in law firms.

An interesting component that helps explain why things have been progressing in the last two to three years is the fact that cloud-based tools not only allow participants of these major hearings – litigation and arbitrations – to work more effectively and efficiently, but corporate clients are also getting on board with the potential of these tools because they are actually helping them control outside litigation costs, and control and evaluate the efficiency and performance of their outside counsel. That was always hard to do. There’s almost a changing paradigm in how litigation is conducted, managed and controlled, and of course the client is going to become an increasing player in all of that. Another interesting point is that if you mentioned the cloud to the client or the law firms four or five years ago, they would have immediately rejected it for security reasons. Since then, the cloud has matured in terms of security and accessibility and performance. People used to be paranoid about the cloud not being behind their firewall— but now people have really changed their attitudes about that.

Another interesting point is that if you mentioned the cloud to the client or the law firms four or five years ago, they would have immediately rejected it for security reasons.

The differences between collaborative workspaces in the U.K. versus the U.S.

I think the problem in the States is that you have a lot of entrenched and very large, but also very traditional-thinking, law firms in the US that tend to dominate the market, and that is a barrier to embracing new ways of doing things. One of the main reasons this technology will have an impact on the U.S. — and American lawyers need to embrace it — is that there’s no denying we are now in a global world. Increasingly, litigation disputes are going to be global. We are talking about hearings going on in multiple jurisdictions. It’s about familiarization with those jurisdictions that will all become part of the whole. Any technology that is going to enable you to access and manage all the materials that are coming out of litigation from across the globe is going to be an incredible efficiency achiever and, as I said earlier, a powerful differentiator for any law firm that embraces it.

The world without a cloud workspace for complex cases.

We are not just talking about cross-border documents that are emanating from different parts of the world and servers all over the place. But it’s the sheer volume of data that’s coming out. One big case that utilized our system in the UK was the Berezovsky v. Abramovich trial, which was the largest private litigation in the world in 2012. It involved five parties; two principal parties and something like 25,000 documents that constituted the trial bundle. Twenty to thirty sets of those documents would have been printed and shared between the law firms and the barristers involved. One of the problems of the traditional way of mapping documents in a case like that is that every single day in the case new documents are presented that need then to be added to the trial bundle. The traditional way that these would be updated to each individual set would be that paralegal support personnel would be jumping in taxis and running around London accruing huge fees — not just taxi fees but billable hours to update a barrister’s or a lawyer’s individual copy of the trial bundle. One of the most significant benefits from this technology in that case was that there was just one central set of documents in the cloud, and the updating just had to be done once. Each side had access from anywhere to that central set of documents. Clients could see behind the scenes not only a trial that was costing less to be conducted, but ran 20-30 percent faster than it might have done if people had had to wait to have hard copy documents to be presented in court.

One of the most significant benefits from this technology in that case was that there was just one central set of documents in the cloud, and the updating just had to be done once.

The market for litigation technology in two to five years.

We are only going to get more of the same. The technology is going to get more powerful, easier to use, more accessible, and have more features that are going to enable a richer experience for collaboration as well as accessibility. One particular area that I am specifically interested in is the ability to enable not only collaboration, but also cross-language collaboration. We are going to find more of that, where the actual sources are in different languages. So cross-border, multilingual collaboration is something that I have a particular interest in. That’s definitely something for the future, as we become more of a global community.