How Technology is Reshaping Litigation

The legal landscape has been slower than other industries to embrace technology. Yet e-discovery tools and contract-review software are finally opening the doors to enhanced legal tech. The third-party legal funding market is one industry that’s making use of available tech to predict outcomes, source cases, and clarify costs.

Canadian Law Review’s National Magazine’s new interview with Amanda Chaboryk, Disputes and Litigation Data Lead at Norton Rose Fulbright, talks about her role in advancing tech in law. Below are some notable comments from Chaboryk:

• “In general, the last decade has seen a lot of changes in the law. We’ve seen increasingly innovative forms of alternative pricing arrangements and insurance products. So in the UK, success fee arrangements include conditional fee arrangements and damage based agreements—which of course are subject to certain conditions.”
• “Just as a whole, the insurance market has developed, with some insurers offering dispute resolution and after the event insurance solutions for both litigation and arbitration. The increase of risk transfer insurance and the sophistication of the market has just been huge for litigation funding and insuring cases as a whole.”
• “If I had to divide the case types into the most common, I would say meritorious claims for damages whether through court or contract—some will be brought by single claimants, some through group actions. The scope is very large, I’ve even seen now some funders funding defamation, divorce and personal injury claims. Years ago I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.”
• “In terms of data stewards, I’ve noticed over the past few years that sometimes law firms will hire consultants or people with different data-related skill sets—especially if you think about different sources of data that law firms have.”
• “Looking at a judgement or a decision—look at all the data points you can, as well as the causative actions and the data that was cited. There’s a lot of publicly available data, and that’s why tools like Lex Machina have been transformational.”