{"id":2817,"date":"2024-07-07T17:52:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T17:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/?p=2817"},"modified":"2024-09-07T08:46:16","modified_gmt":"2024-09-07T08:46:16","slug":"ediscovery-in-sa-massive-progress-towards-uniform-rules-changes-to-incorporate-ediscovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/07\/ediscovery-in-sa-massive-progress-towards-uniform-rules-changes-to-incorporate-ediscovery\/","title":{"rendered":"eDiscovery in SA \u2013 Massive progress towards Uniform Rules changes to incorporate eDiscovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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There are days when something happens that makes you think, \u201cWow, this a great day\u201d. There are days when something happens that makes you think, \u201cThis is a terrible day\u201d. Then, there was Wednesday 5 June 2024, which was the probably the very best day of my working life in my adopted country of South Africa.<\/p>

Many of you have been reading my blog posts for many years now \u2013 I have over 100 Linkedin posts \u2013 and you have some idea of how hard I have been working and lobbying for all of those years for a change to our rules of civil procedure to incorporate eDiscovery. It is around 8 years since I met the then Secretary of the Rules Board of the DoJ in Pretoria and it was in 2017 when I was invited to address the Rules Board in Johannesburg on the subject of eDiscovery in SA. Since that time, I have chased and harried and spoken at countless events and webinars. I wrote a book with my great friend Adv Ismail Hussain SC, A Guide to eDiscovery in South Africa, which was published by Lexis Nexis. I was quoted by the South Africa Law Reform Commission in their Discussion Paper 150 about legal fees and access to justice. I work every single day on eDiscovery in SA, helping and advising lawyers and legal teams, and supporting my wife, Waseema\u2019s, company, Harrisons eDiscovery Consulting (Pty) Ltd, of which I am a Director. We have worked on some great cases, advised lawyers on the complexities of a UK discovery (disclosure to those in the UK), handled a huge matter for a New York law firm and done so much to bring our knowledge of global best practices to South Africa. All at the same time being fantastically supported by Relativity as we have RelativityOne which is hosted here in South Africa and we played a part in that happening.<\/p>

So, with all of this, what has made 5 June so special for me? I received an email from the Rules Board enclosing a letter which is a Request for Comment concerning their review of discovery in SA with particular regard to electronic documents and eDiscovery. I won\u2019t go into detail here about what they are seeking from me and, no doubt, the many other role players to have been invited, but in simple terms it is everything that I have been advocating for al these years. They are asking for a great deal of comment covering, the current deficiencies, suggested rule changes, High Court Magistrates Court or both, the impact on costs, practices in foreign jurisdictions which may be of assistance and more. All of us have until 30 August to respond, after which they will prepare rule amendments and submit for consideration.<\/p>

Will I respond? Hell, yes, and you know, after all of these years I have overcome any feelings of frustration and rancour and it will be an honour to respond because I truly believe that this country needs eDiscovery so badly.<\/p>

I am sure I will write more on this subject but for now, please forgive me if I sound maudlin. The truth is that I feel emotional, elated, and excited at the same time, and I just want to absorb the happening, talk to a few people, and then begin, in earnest to meet the request of the Rule Board For Courts of Law Republic of South Africa.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are days when something happens that makes you think, \u201cWow, this a great day\u201d. There are days when something happens that makes you think, […]<\/p>\n","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-2817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817","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=2817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2821,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions\/2821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonsedconsulting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}