Legal IT gets adversarial

There may be some jurists who still believe that information technology is all well and good, but at the end of the day it's the performance in court which wins the case.

However, adopting the latest technology does not seem to have hampered ," said Phillips Fox IT director Jim Delooze.

In the Estate Mortgage case that went before the Supreme Court of Victoria, a CD-ROM stacker containing 25 CDs of evidence was required to present the mountain of evidence in the case.

As this courtroom was fully wired and online, Phillips Fox connected the courtroom to its WAN, which in turn provided the infrastructure for the company's intranet.

From the intranet it was possible for senior partners to follow the case from their offices (or homes, if they had the facilities), as the proceedings were being transcribed live and on-line.

Indeed, he could even instruct the legal representative at the hearing via the online link, and pass on specific instructions.

Even lawyers like to chat online.