Did Queen Victoria actually say “we are not amused” or was it Queen Elizabeth I? What on earth were they talking about? Does it matter? Well no, not really but it is fun to try and ascribe words to historical personages and even more so to adapt them to and use them in a more… Read More »
Ancient legislation has been much in the news recently what with the 100th birthday of the Official Secrets Act of 1911 and the dusting off and scrutiny of the provisions of the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 by countless claimants and nervous police forces (and insurers). The oldest piece of Statute law in the United Kingdom… Read More »
A concerned reader has recently been enquiring after my health after I wrote about being struck by a goat in Bishop’s Square in Spitalfields – Sheep from goats, Smart e-Discovery blog, 4th Aug, 2011. This sort of loose language is of course entirely unacceptable and I apologise for causing concern to my reader and can assure… Read More »
Next week sees your correspondent jetting off to the Athens of the South, more commonly known as Nashville, Tennessee or the Music City, for the International Legal Technology Association Annual Conference 2011, known as ILTA. The conference takes place in the famous Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, said to be the largest non-casino hotel… Read More »
Which is closest to your view of disclosure/discovery? •Technology created the problem so technology needs to solve it. •Electronic discovery is often the tail which wags the litigation dog, using up between 50% and 80% of the litigation budget. •I am afraid not to know it because it dominates every part of the case. •None… Read More »
“I get it entirely when you say we should not print out electronic data”, said the trainee who approached me at the end of a recent training session, but, and here she blushed, “what do I say to the partner who insists that I print out the contents of a CD or hard drive?” It… Read More »
If you can tear yourselves away for a moment from the grim headlines in the newspapers of tumbling stock markets and idiots rioting in the streets, you will know that I believe one of the major barriers to engaging lawyers in the use of appropriate technology is the widespread use of “technospeak.” It seems obvious to… Read More »
As a lawyer, I am all too aware of the tendency of my profession to wrap up ideas and concepts in language which, to the average outsider, sounds like impenetrable gibberish. The ability of so-called insiders to construct a special language marks out a territory to which outsiders are not admitted or are only admitted… Read More »