Dominic Regan reflects on the reform of disclosure (again!)
It is understandable that so much attention has been directed at the recent costs and funding changes. However, the reach of Jackson is far greater. Any step or process has an inevitable cost attached to it and now is the time to look at how the disclosure process will change under the new regime.
A christening
We have been here before. Lord Woolf identified what was then discovery as a potentially laborious and often pointless exercise due to the broad ranging test of relevance which then prevailed. His 1999 reforms to what he christened “disclosure” were intended to limit the amount of documents to be revealed by emphasising that the standard process ought only to include documents which had an impact, positive or negative, upon the dispute.
For a variety of reasons, identified in chapter 37 of the final Jackson report, disclosure has continued to eat up a disproportionate amount of time and money.
Two key causes can be identified:
- The first is the explosion in the number of electronic documents now generated
