20 March 2019
Digitising disputes – 14 of 15 Insights
Digitising Disputes: The Courts of Tomorrow
We were delighted to be joined by The Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey Vos (the Chancellor of the High Court), Alexis Mitchell (Principal Data Scientist at Opus 2 International) and Laura Bygrave (Innovation Manager at Taylor Wessing) for our inaugural Digitising Disputes event on 20 March 2019.
Sir Geoffrey delivered a fascinating keynote speech on the "Court of the Future", followed by a panel and audience discussion on the key themes likely to arise over the next decade as far as the courts, practitioners, clients and legal tech developers are concerned, including:
- Likelihood of increased reliance on block chain or digital contracts and surveillance by the parties reducing the scope for factual disputes.
- Evolution of legal research tools to speed up legal argument.
- Reduced need for in-person hearings, with more Court processes to be done electronically or via video hearings (interestingly, the debate coincided with two Manchester litigants in-person conducting a hearing via video conference for the first time in English court history earlier in the same week).
- The extent to which AI will alter the legal profession, and the tools we need to equip ourselves going forward.
- The likely barriers to change, including parts of the legal profession itself, as well as competitiveness of England and Wales as a dispute resolution venue in the future.
In addition to the "future gazing", Sir Geoffrey also touched on a couple of related issues:
- The need to provide more space for ADR in any future Court systems.
- The hope that technological change will assist in increasing diversity in the legal profession and judiciary, by allowing professionals to achieve a greater balance between work and family commitments.
Find out more
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In this series
Sidebar – Season 1 box set
The Future of Litigation
4 May 2021
by Multiple authors
The Future of Litigation – Episode 6
What does evidence look like in the digital age?
20 April 2021
The Future of Litigation – Episode 5
The impact of AI on litigation
6 April 2021
The Future of Litigation – Episode 4
The impact of technology on litigation funding
23 March 2021
The Future of Litigation – Episode 2
The case for case prediction
23 February 2021
The Future of Litigation – Episode 1
Hearings in a remote world
9 February 2021
Connected cars, cyber security and data protection challenges
9 December 2020
Law Commission report on electronic execution of documents
18 September 2019
Electronic signatures: an attempt to renege on a contract using formalities
21 October 2019
The next instance? Artificial intelligence meets litigation in the UK
16 May 2019
Related Insights
Sidebar – Season 1 box set
The Future of Litigation
by multiple authors
The Future of Litigation – Episode 4
The impact of technology on litigation funding
by Laurence Lieberman and Nick Storrs
The Future of Litigation – Episode 3
The courts go digital