The Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia yesterday gave effect to the long-awaited Practice Note No 17 – The use of technology in the management of discovery and the conduct of litigation.
Those of us involved in drafting the proposed new Technology Questionnaire and draft Practice Direction in the UK have been keen to keep up with parallel initiatives in the Common Law jurisdictions. and particularly Australia and Canada.
The timing of its final release is good and bad from my point of view – good in that I am due to speak on a panel at LegalTech in New York next week about international initiatives in electronic discovery, and bad in that I have enough to do to be ready for tomorrow’s flight without exciting new developments to read up.
Fortunately, one of my co-speakers on that panel is Jo Sherman who was heavily involved in the drafting of the Practice Note, so I can leave it to her to cover it. I will read it on the plane and cover it in more detail shortly.
My thanks to Geoffrey Lambert of KordaMentha in Melbourne and to Seamus Byrne who each sent me a link to the Practice Note within hours of its promulgation.
