The Battle Between Ediscovery Lawyers And Technology

The process of litigation can take a long time to be completed. During the process of discovery the information is shared between the conflicting parties. The information in the discovery helps the defence teams to draw their legal process and to advance their arguments during the court proceedings.
This information can be too much. Take for example someone who has been working for an asbestos mining company. He has the original letter of employment, has been receiving payment from the company inform of monthly salaries and has been receiving memos through email notifications. He retires and after thirty years develops mesothelioma cancer.
In this example the claimer wants medical compensation for his trouble. The lawyer must prove that the client’s problem resulted from occupational exposure to asbestos during his work days. This can present a major hurdle. However this problem can be eliminated by use of ediscovery. This process involves identifying, collecting, preserving, reviewing, analysing and producing documents that have been stored in digital form. For example emails, reports, memos, and many other types of documents. The technology involved in highly advanced and may be difficult to use but it saves time and money.
The battle between ediscovery lawyers and technology arises from the fact that discovery lawyers see that this technological advancement may reduce their marketability and their ability to defend their clients. The idea of sharing electronic information can expose company flows and weaknesses making it difficult to build adequate support. The clients on the other hand expect their lawyers to always succeed and the legal process must also be expedited. This translates to lower cost in terms of legal fees and the possibility of amicable litigation. Electronic discovery has actually reduced the revenues of some lawyers.
The other point of conflict is the ease of access of the information gathered. This shared information can cross borders into other nations exposing the vital information pertinent to these companies in case of a conflict between a company and an individual. This presents big problems to the companies’ privacy policies since what is acceptable in one country may not necessarily be acceptable in the other. The ediscovery lawyers of law firms that defend these companies are locked in great battle with the increasing technological advancement. This battle however in not likely to stop soon and therefore these lawyers must find the best way to cope in a rapidly changing civil law process.