In-house legal teams lack skills to handle e-disclosure

More than half of IT organisations and in-house legal departments lack the people and appropriate skills to handle electronic discovery, according to research analyst Gartner.

Now being called e-disclosure, the field of collecting, collating and correlating electronic data prior to going to court is an area fraught with complexity. There is currently ‘no clear model for e-discovery’, according to Debra Logan, vice-president and research director at Gartner.

The research firm forecasted that three-quarters of global companies will be involved in legal or regulatory action ‘that requires a systematic approach to legal discovery with IT playing [a] crucial role’.

But Gartner’s main focus is on the US; the position in England and Wales is different, mainly because of last year’s changes to the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), introducing provisions for electronic disclosure.

Michael Taylor, legal consultant for e-disclosure firm Kroll Ontrack, pointed out the gap between the New and Old Worlds in terms of e-disclosure. ‘Judicial decisions are rapidly developing electronic discovery law and procedure in the US,’ he said. ‘For a change, the UK is one step ahead, having amended the practice direction to CPR 31 in October 2005.’