THAT BLONDE

May i just point out to my ever widening audience that Mrs Padmore is a happily married women .That is the story we have agreed upon anyway. Those who recall my Dennis The Menace days will know i am honourable.Ish.

QCs

Today is the day that those who applied will find out if they have been successful.Should you see any junior ordering magnums of Dom Perignon 2002 today be very suspicious.

ELECTRONIC DISCLOSURE

My thanks to HH Judge Simon Brown QC who sent me a judgment from New York handed down on february 24th. How international we have become.In DA SILVA MOORE V PUBLICIS Judge Peck , the loveliest and most genial of men , approved predictive coding as a legitimate method of securing the just ,speedy and inexpensive resolution of disputes.Coding consists of training a computer to comprehend which documents are relevant , with feedback being given on a core set of documents. This enables the custodian of the documents to point the system in the right direction and it will then undertake a thorough search , narrowing down the mass to a more manageable shortlist.
 Some worthwhile observations include the declaration that it is a myth that a  manual search is more effective and the statement that it was very helpful to take to court your technology expert ( also known as "Bring your geek to court day" ). Ouch.

PHONE HACKING

It is reported that Charlotte Church has pocketed £600,000 as a victim of being hacked. Horrid as it must have been, is it right that damages should be so high? I asked our leading p.i.  barrister , Stuart MacKechnie , what was the maximum an injured person would get for their injury. In an instant he told me that quadriplegia and very severe brain injury attract £265,000. Madness.

EFFECTIVE CASE MANAGEMENT

A trial is due to begin in New Orleans on monday.There are 116,000 plaintiffs , 300 witnesses and 72 million documents which if printed and stacked would soar 4 and a half miles into the air.It is the action for damages against BP for losses caused by the Deepwater pollution disaster . What is amazing is that the incident only happened on April 20 th 2010.It is a staggering tribute to Judge Barbier that he actively managed so much so quickly . This is precisely the Jackson/ Brown model of case management that we so urgently need in our own juridiction.

RSA LEGAL

I have just got back from Manchester where i was with the great RSA team including Sue Bright , one of my oldest friends. and the Birmingham head of legal, Sarah Padmore ( the person on the left of the picture ) who lives in sunny Harborne and who is just the kindest of people.  I had a long chat with David Graham whom has mellowed enormously. As i approached he put down his book , 'Finding Your Female Inner Self ' and sipped at his Elderflower presse , having renounced alcohol . Loise Doherty organised the event as brilliantly as ever and to top it off Roy Hughes , DLA training supremo, said hello this morning .Too much.

CHRIS DALE

I am so grateful for the patronage of Chris Dale , the Godfather of electronic disclosure, who has set me up to talk in Munich at the end of june. If you want to know what is really going on in the field then read his blog which also contains stupendous travel writing too.