Articles in this Series
LĩST - the Litigation Support Technology
Group
What is LĩST?
The LĩST
Draft Documents
The LĩST draft
Practice Direction
The
LĩST Data Exchange Protocol
Disclosure Documents
Disclosure Data
Why a Data Exchange
Protocol?
LĩST
Publications
Some
LĩST definitions
Document
Anything in which information of any description is recorded as
defined in
CPR Part 31.
Disclosure Documents
Documents disclosed by a party in accordance with
CPR Part 31
Disclosure Data
Electronic data which identifies Disclosure Documents, including for
example the type of Document, the date of the Document, the names of
the author/sender and the recipient, and the party disclosing the
Document.
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Litigation Support and Electronic Disclosure
LĩST
Data Exchange Protocol Part 1 of 2 Disclosure Documents
LĩST Data Exchange
Protocol Part 2 of 2 Disclosure Data
LiST's Data Exchange
Protocol appears as two documents, Part 1 about Disclosure Documents
and Part 2 on Disclosure Data. They are on the LiST web site:
LĩST
Data Exchange Protocol Part 1 of 2 - Disclosure Documents
LĩST
Data Exchange Protocol Part 2 of 2 - Disclosure Data
If you are confused by the double use of the word "Data" in these headings,
by the difference between the Practice Direction and the Protocol, or as to
what if anything any of this has to do with e-filing, you may care to read
my note Grounds for Confusion
The Data Exchange Protocol seeks
to simplify exchange by establishing a common standard and some rules, and to do so
separately for the documents themselves ("the Disclosure Documents") and for the information about documents
("the Disclosure Data"). The broad
range of forms which a "document" can take warrants detailed attention to
the electronic files. The need for Disclosure Data to be exchangeable
(and thence indexable and searchable) requires a precise form, not merely for the data
as a whole but for the contents of each field in it. The latter
point is explained in the "Roderick Ramsbottom" example in the
article Why is a Data Exchange Protocol
necessary?
The two parts of Data Exchange Protocol kick off with a set of clear recitals - what the
Protocol
does, what it does not do and why it is necessary. These include a statement
as to the target audience:
"This Protocol is aimed
primarily at those who are using some form of litigation support system
to manage their case. Specifically, it will be of benefit to
internal specialists or
external service providers who have responsibility for processing and
managing electronic disclosure. Although drafted in relatively simple
terms, this Protocol assumes that the reader has a level of technical
knowledge sufficient for undertaking electronic disclosure".
It does not, therefore, aim to guide or inform
the non-expert. This has to be the right approach. LĩST is a
think-tank, a group of experts thrashing out some conventions which will
allow their lawyers to exchange Disclosure data. They have a wider purpose,
no doubt, and hope that the end-product of their work will become a
standard, but their starting-point is what will work for them.
That does not make their output irrelevant to
others not in the club. One of the recurring themes in this site is that you
do not need full-time staff and a site licence for some expensive software
to exchange data. The Data Exchange Protocol includes some general
principles which benefit anyone with a big case to run.
Future articles on this site will expand on
this point. The purpose of this page is to summarise what the Data Exchange
Protocol does. You may care first to read Why is a
Data Exchange Protocol needed?
Contact me if anything covered in this
section is relevant to what YOU want to achieve NOW.
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