The Litigation Support Technology Group (LiST), a UK-based association, is an excellent source of information about the use of technology in support of litigation. Jonathan Maas, head of litigation technology at DLA Piper UK LLP, was instrumental in the formation and operation of LiST. ALSP Update recently interviewed Maas.

ALSP: How did LiST get started?
Maas: Back in the 1990s, I used to organize informal drinks once or twice a year in London for anyone interested in litigation support, whether they be expert or amateur or in private practice or with a supplier. Those stopped in 1999. In early 2003, a litigation partner at law firm Allen & Overy sent out letters to litigation support managers suggesting that they ought to get together and provide a forum for networking and discussing litigation support. In November 2003, the Litigation Support Technology Group was formally launched.

ALSP: What are the membership requirements?
Maas: At present, LiST is a think tank — not an educational resource — so members must be experienced thought leaders in litigation support and employed by law firms, governmental agencies or corporations. We are in the process of dividing membership into associate or full, which will give us greater flexibility and allow less experienced and/or overseas professionals to gain entry. Many of the law firms with major offices in the UK have one or more LiST members. A list of the current organizations is available online. 

ALSP: What type of activities does LiST support?
Maas: One of our major activities has been to develop a Data Exchange Protocol for the exchange of electronic documents and data. Part 1 of the Protocol provides for the exchange of electronic documents themselves, including electronic versions created from paper documents. It essentially recommends that in the absence of agreement about the form of exchange, electronic disclosure documents should be produced in 300 DPI monochrome TIF images in A4 size with a specified orientation, and provides file naming recommendations.

Part 2 of the LiST Data Exchange Protocol details how to exchange data from one litigation support system to another. We acknowledge that we can't change how individual systems store their data but we can specify how they should routinely provide that data and, therefore, how another system would expect to receive LiST-compliant data ready for automatic reformatting to fit its own particular requirements. For example, if one system permits “2007/11/00” for partial dates but another system treats that as an invalid date, a standard way of representing such dates will save everyone involved a lot of time and expense. We provided an early draft of our exchange standard to the XML working group of the EDRM (Electronic Data Reference Model), though the scope of their undertaking appears to be somewhat different — vendors developing standard load files for different litigation support or discovery review platforms.

Another major activity we worked on was the creation of a draft Disclosure Statement. Under UK law, a representative from each party — not their legal advisors — must prepare a Disclosure Statement attesting to what they have done to find and produce all relevant documents. The current Disclosure Statement does not, in our opinion, go into enough detail about what each party has and has not done in relation to its electronic documents. LiST has drafted a revised statement, which it has posted on its Web site and submitted to the Ministry of Justice, that seeks to redress that shortfall.

In the UK, Practice Directions underpin, and help to explain how to comply with, the Civil Procedure Rules that govern how we conduct civil cases. LiST has also prepared a draft Practice Direction governing the use of technology in civil litigation and has submitted it to the Department of Justice. Although not formally adopted by the Department of Justice it provides an excellent overview of UK disclosure and terminology, and includes the exchange of “action documents” electronically, the use of technology at the trial itself, and questionnaires that can be used by the parties to facilitate the use of technology by the parties.

The LiST publications are available online at www.listgroup.org/publications.htm.

ALSP: What is the current focus of LiST?
Maas: As well as continuing our work on the Data Exchange Protocols, LiST is working on “job sizing” for different categories of paralegals; i.e., drafting descriptions of different types of paralegals, their pay ranges and expected levels of experience. We are also reinvigorating interest in formal certification for those positions and are going to review some work I was involved with in the UK many years ago as part of the Law Society's creation of national vocational qualifications for paralegals in civil litigation.