{"id":2143,"date":"2024-04-28T18:13:44","date_gmt":"2024-04-28T18:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2024-04-28T18:15:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-28T18:15:14","slug":"ediscovery-in-sa-how-will-sa-lawyers-react-to-the-pending-inevitable-rise-in-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/28\/ediscovery-in-sa-how-will-sa-lawyers-react-to-the-pending-inevitable-rise-in-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"eDiscovery in SA \u2013 how will SA lawyers react to the pending inevitable rise in litigation?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Having been involved in litigation for more than 40 years, partly working as a litigation\r\nfee earner in UK law firms and then 20 years in eDiscovery, like many, I have\r\nseen recessions, \u201cboom and bust\u201d times and now of course the unprecedented\r\ndifficulties for businesses surrounding the pandemic that is Covid-19.\r\n\r\nGiven that those of us involved in litigation in one way or another for this length of\r\ntime often say that litigation, investigations, and dispute resolution\r\ngenerally, is \u201crecession and crisis proof\u201d I am wondering about the\r\nopportunities and challenges facing SA law firms at this time. These thoughts\r\noccurred to me after reading 3 excellent posts and articles on the theme\r\nwritten by people who know what they are talking about, two of them by people\r\nknown to me personally.\r\n\r\nThe first from David Morley (whom I am sorry to say I do not know), former Senior Partner\r\nof global law firm Allen & Overy in which he sums up the challenges within\r\nlaw firms and gives straight forward thinking on the stark realities. Reduce\r\nPartners income? Slash junior lawyers head count? Reduce admin and support staff and any other\r\nnon fee earners? Tremendously insightful article which I commend lawyers in SA\r\nto read. \r\n\r\nThe second by Greg Wildesen, a hugely experienced eDiscovery guy, (whom I do know) who posted\r\non Link, \u201cLegal\r\nhas previously thrived on market crash exits - this time though it is\r\ninevitable the legal service delivery model will face significant change. A\r\nchange for the better for all.\u201d, following an\r\narticle in the UK Times to the effect that an outbreak of litigation is inevitable \r\n\r\nFinally, the third by Vince Neicho of Integreon, London and formerly with Allen & Overy\r\nfor more years than he can remember heading up eDiscovery there (I am happy to\r\nhave known Vince for more than 15 years), in\r\nwhich he refers to the cyclical nature of litigation and offers advice and hope\r\nas to how to deal with it through outsourced review.\r\n\r\nSo what can SA law firms learn from all that is happening and what has been written and are\r\nthey already reacting? Well some certainly are because anyone can see, now,\r\nthat litigation is rising rapidly in SA at the moment even if the majority of\r\ncases surround actions brought against the Government in connection with their\r\nalleged mishandling of lockdown regulations. Similarly, we are seeing an\r\nincrease in investigations, with, no doubt, more to follow now that the Zondo\r\nCommission on State Capture is resuming this month.\r\n\r\nMy point is that the smart law firms will not only survive this crisis but prosper from it.\r\nCareful, sound, long-sighted decisions need to be made to avoid \u201cknee jerk\u201d\r\nreactions that involve slashing staff. Similarly, the increase in contentious\r\nwork should not be seen as an open invitation to increase staffing levels.\r\nRather, work smart, manage the workload, and prepare for an increased workload\r\nby taking advantage of technology and such operations as outsourced document\r\nreview. Using technology is of course my main interest \u2013 the increased use of\r\neDiscovery technology to materially assist with litigation and investigations.\r\nIt is incontrovertible that using the technology reduces the cost and time in a\r\ncase but it also reduces risk and manpower. \r\n\r\nDifficult times call for decisive actions and a positive attitude and I call on SA law\r\nfirms to take advantage and step up.<\/p>\r\n <\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2148,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}