Predictive coding: the next legal trend in Europe?
Last week legal technology providers in the UK had a lot to celebrate as the English High Court approved the use of predictive coding for disclosure in litigation.
The judgement, handed down by Master Matthews, gave official judicial authorisation for the use of predictive coding in High Court proceedings. Summing up his decision, Master Matthews stated that predictive coding is just as accurate, if not more so as a manual review using keyword searches. He also estimated that predictive coding would offer significant cost savings in this particular case and that the possible disclosure of over 3 million documents done via traditional manual review would be disproportionate and ‘unreasonable’.
To read the judgement in full, please click here.
How does predictive coding work?
Predictive coding is an advanced machine-learning technology which allows computers to predict how documents should be coded (i.e., should a document be tagged ‘responsive’ or ‘privileged’) based on decisions made by human subject matter experts. Put simply, an experienced lawyer trains the computer by coding a sample set of documents, and the computer then learns what to look for based on this training. In the context of edisclosure and other investigative exercises involving electronic evidence, this technology can find key documents faster and with fewer human reviewers, thereby saving on cost and review time.
What does this mean for the Netherlands?
The UK judgement marks the second European country to give judicial approval to predictive coding technology (the first being Ireland), following on from the United States whose courts first gave approval in 2013. Although the UK and USA are unique in having disclosure rules as part of their legislation, ediscovery technology is becoming increasingly popular in Europe for use in other legal matters, such as competition investigations.
Predictive coding is just as versatile and the cost savings offered by predictive coding will undoubtedly be popular with clients and will potentially give a competitive edge in winning work.
Want to learn more?
With two European countries giving official approval it only seems to be a matter of time before other European countries follow suit in adopting predictive coding technology.
Get ahead of the competition and join KLDiscovery for a breakfast workshop on Predictive Coding on 22nd March at (time) and (venue). The workshop will guide you through the terminology, the process and give practical examples of how predictive coding can be used in your casework.