On Just Terms S2 E12 - Complexity, class actions and the future of litigation with the Honourable Justice Michael Wigney, Federal Court of Australia

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Welcome to On Just Terms, the podcast from Herbert Smith Free Hills Kramer, where we examine the litigation and regulatory issues shaping corporate Australia through conversations with people of influence in the development of the law.
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Today we're joined by the Honourable Justice Wigney of the Federal Court of Australia, one of Australia's most experienced judges in complex commercial litigation and representative proceedings.
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Over the course of his judicial career, Justice Wigney has presided over some of the country's most significant class actions, significant regulatory proceedings, and high-profile commercial disputes.
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In this conversation, we explore how the courts are responding to the growing complexity of modern litigation from the challenges presented by expansive pleadings, discovery, and written submissions through the management of representative proceedings, settlement approvals, and the role of specialist expertise in resolving increasingly technical disputes.
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One thing we've been exploring in our discussions with guests is the increased complexity of commercial litigation, and we thought having a judge here gives us an opportunity to ask that of you.
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And one issue that we know has arisen and we're seeing it is very long and complicated pleadings.
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Some what prolix seems to be permutations and combinations of different causes of action and maybe building in some fallbacks.
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I wanted to get a judicial perspective of that practice if you're seeing it and how it's impacting you and the challenges it's creating for the court.
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Yes.
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Well, look, I can say absolutely in my almost 13 years on the bench that the size and complexity of cases is risen astronomically, particularly in recent years, starting off with pleadings.
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That's one of my great bugbears, I have to say.
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I mean, I have been presented in the last couple of years with pleadings that sometimes cannot fit into one lever-arch folder and uh next schedules.
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And it I often tell people that when a case first gets allocated to our docket and before our first case management hearing, often we'll just have the pleadings and you would open the pleadings, look at the pleadings, supposedly with a view to ascertaining what the issues in the case are.
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And I can tell you it's often the last place you would want to go to find out what the issues in a case are, because uh they obscure the issues more than anything else.
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So it's a it's a challenge.
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Have some knock-on effects.
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I suppose during the trial you you you're trying to gauge what's relevant and what's not, that's harder with the longer pleading, and then when you come to write a judgment, we don't envy what you have to do.
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Well, I mean, at least as far as I'm concerned, often aside from in the early days of the case, and uh if there's regrettably pleading disputes, which no judge likes dealing with, often the pleadings are just confined to the dustbin of history by the time it gets to trial, and you rarely even look at them, including often when you're writing a judgment, unless there an issue has arisen about a case being run outside the pleadings, which rarely happens.
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And that's it's regrettable because at the end of the day the pleadings are meant to define the issues in the case.
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And if, as I'm sure we'll get to, if the pleadings aren't clear, then it leads to case management issues uh as the case progresses.
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Yep.
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One of the speaking of case management issues, we will get back to this, but while we're there, the burden on the courts, but also on the parties of enormous discovery processes, particularly for what I might call the the very largest pieces of litigation.
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I imagine I mean I don't think people think about the strain that that must put on the courts as well as the parties producing and reviewing it.
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And I I think it would be fair to say that a lot of cases do boil down to a couple of core volumes, as opposed to the 60,000 documents that are I'm wondering if um the the sorts of case management pressures that's creating for the courts and are there what you're observing in terms of the courts' reactions to trying to cut to the critical issues?
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Well, I think I mean we have to be a bit realistic.
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I mean, it it is certainly the case that often in cases where there's thousands, tens of thousands of documents in evidence, it ultimately comes down to a small folder of documents.
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However, being realistic about it, we don't know whether those key documents were produced in in the initial discovery or through more expansive discovery.
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So we understand that sometimes a discovery process is necessary to get to that confined volume of documents.
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I I suppose the frustration is more in the uh in the hearing stage where you are confronted now these days, often an electronic trial and an electronic version of the tender bundle, which is tens of thousands of documents, you have no feel for it at all.
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So that's that's where we feel the the problem.
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Not so much in the discovery phase, though.
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We understand the burdens that that imposes uh on the parties.
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I mean, we have to deal with the disputes about discovery.
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So not our favourite topic.
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Well, at least speaking for myself, not my favourite topic.
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I don't think you'd be alone.
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By the way, your has your practice evolved for for a large trial where the parties have tendered thousands of documents, not they probably haven't taken you to all of those.
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Yeah.
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Do you have particular ways that you like to deal with that for a large trial?
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Uh I've tried many different ways and none of them have worked.
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I mean it it's things have certainly changed over the years.
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I mean, uh it sounds like an old timer, but when I started, we had paper files.
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Literally, you you'd get, you know, when you when you were allocated a case, you'd get the file and there was literally the paper in it.
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Now, of course, the federal court has the considerable advantage of a basically fully digital uh court file.
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So one development in particular in recent years is the electronic trial.
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So you just don't have paper.
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But that has its own challenges.
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So I recently had a regular regulatory case, one of the major regulators, and um I don't know how many tens of thousands of documents were in the electronic tender bundle.
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And I've tried different ways I say to the parties, I'm not going to look at any document unless you take me to it in, or you know, it's the subject of oral evidence, cross-examination or evidence in chief, or you actually take me to it in submissions, often they will then present you, and this is probably no doubt another topic of 1,000-page submissions with footnotes to the documents, and they claim that that's a version of taking you to it, that that's of course no uh help to the judge.
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So there's all dip various different ways.
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I I think in the originally I used to say, well, if you don't take me to it, I'm actually going to take it out of the bundle of documents, but that's not feasible anymore in electronic uh files, so it's a it's a real challenge.
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Yes.
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Um and we we rely on the on the the lawyers really to help us in that regard.
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So I mean we do you find that we are now having discussions about what we think is um feasible for a judge to absorb.
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And we do we're starting to think about that more, I think.
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I know that there's been a judge commented recently about the length of the written submissions and people not appreciating how much work has to be done by the judge.
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But I think that the more we have those discussions, yeah, the more at our end of the profession we can actually work with counsel to see if we can actually reduce the volume because it's not going to be good for anybody if the judge is given too much material, I think.
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Yeah, I mean I think people have to understand that I mean often w when we get particularly the big complex cases, often often that's the product of teams of people, lawyers working on it sometimes for years now.
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And then they produce it to us, and there is literally the judge and an associate, or sometimes if we're lucky, two associates that can help out, and we we can get some other assistance, but that's basically it.
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And I think there's a common misconception as as much as I love having my associates and rely on them.
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I mean, you you can't know you can't rely on them to be helping you really in writing the judgment, it just doesn't help you.
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Of course.
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But uh it's yeah, so it it really just comes down to you, and it's a real challenge in these these massive cases.
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So and we're finding as well our clients are saying to us, how can we get to those two volumes of critical documents earlier?
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Uh you know, rather than four years of trench warfare when we finally work out what our our own case is about, let alone so I can only imagine that's multiplied when a judge reserves and then's trying to sift through complex pleading, a tender of 3,000 documents and try to work out where it all fits.
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So I don't think people really think about that as an as as much as they should.
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Yeah.
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I mean, in in this recent trial that I had, um, which was wholly electronic, I did say at one stage to count one of the council who, um, senior counsel who was still it was working off paper and would bring up a trolley of paper.
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I said, If if you printed out every document that was in this electronic bundle, um, you know, what would be the size of it?
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And she said, Well, we've actually done it and it fills an entire room.
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Wow, so it doesn't summarise, I suppose.
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It's it's shocking.
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Yeah, it's still shocking to hear.
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But probably these problems are arising as we see more global litigation as well, but of which there's an Australian chapter, would you say?
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My attitude to pleading sometimes is that there's a there's a real, I call it a syndrome, a just-in-case syndrome.
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You you include it in the pleading just in case.
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So you'll have every conceivable cause of action you can possibly think of in there just in case of depending on what happens.
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But you you have to sort of, I think, and this is why I think engaging people who are actually going to present the case uh in court at at the end, approach the pleadings and the preparation of the case as if you are senior counsel on the first day of the trial telling the judge what this case is all about.
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And they're not going to tell you the 25 different alternative causes of action and the different ways you put it, they'll say this case is all about and they will focus in on what is what are the key they should, um, and they usually do.
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What's the key cause of action?
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What's their strongest case?
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Of course they take you to the strongest case.
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And I think if you approached the litigation from that perspective from the outset, then it would do away with a lot of the drudgery and hard work that goes into putting all these documents together and the discovery process as well.
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So because it's a good remainder of that.
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You have to understand that if you plead your case with 20 different alternatives and 20 different causes of action, then that's going to define the scope of the discovery as well.
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So it means more documents.
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So if you if your your case is clearly focused on your strong case at the outset, then hopefully it'll it'll avoid overly expansive discovery and the production of tens of thousands of documents that'll never see the light of day again.
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So if you don't win on your strongest case, you're not gonna win.
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Exactly.
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If if someone sits down and thinks it through, well, if we don't get up on that strong case, are we really gonna get up on those alternatives?
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And if if we're not gonna get up on the all those all alternatives, then why have them in there?
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Yes.
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Um is that a good segue to talk about submissions and the role of oral advocacy with the judge?
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Yeah, I think it is.
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Would would you like to lead that?
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Well, um, we were thinking about, Judge, your experience with the written submissions versus oral submissions and the balance there, because we know even in the work that we've done, sometimes the material that we put into the written submissions is very, very lengthy.
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We're interested in is the court finding that it's wanting more advocacy, oral submissions, or what do you find most useful?
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Well, uh it's it's a combination of two, but so long as they so long as they're they're consistent.
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So, I mean, unfortunately, sometimes we get cases where these vast written submissions are produced, and then council stand up and say, of course we rely on our written submissions, and then they'll they'll uh address you in an in a way that is just not really consistent.
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And it's not I'm not blaming council, um, because they're they've often had teams of people have been producing this.
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Again, in recent times I had a trial where that they were going to go straight into oral submissions at the end of the evidence, uh, even though it was a very long and complex case, and I said, that's fine.
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But what I don't want you to do is when you stand up on the first day, produce you know, 500-page written submissions and put it aside and then address me, because I mean I won't have read it, so what's the advantage?
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I mean it then I have to look at it later and then work out whether your oral address was entirely consistent with your written submissions.
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And uh regrettably that's exactly what happened.
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So though they they did.
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And and and the other problem with that sometimes is what what judges really want from the written submissions, and they re requires communication and collaboration between the parties, is that the written submissions engage with each other and focus, both focus on what are the key issues.
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And sometimes, and I try not to be over overly prescriptive in telling the experienced practitioners how they should go about their work, but I I really want them to engage so that they're you know ideally so that their the the applicants' submissions will have the key issues and then the responder submissions will address those key issues in the ships in the and it happens all the time, um, which is most unfortunate.
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That's really challenging.
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But I think lengthy written submissions can be of considerable assistance when it comes to writing the judgment because you you in relate relation to the key factual issues, you want to know where the material is, particularly if it's an electronic court book, you want to know where to find the the key evidence.
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So and that's useful to have them catalogued properly in the written submissions.
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So they they're definitely useful, but I I think um to come back I think to the initial question, I think oral advocacy still has a very important place because experienced senior counsel in complex cases, as usually senior counsel or experienced counsel will really focus on what are the key issues in their oral address.
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They're not going to stand up and and uh address you on the weak case first or the all of the various alternatives.
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They will go straight in and address you.
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I find helpful when there are lengthy written submissions, um, in fact, I'd almost invariably do this now, is to have counsel produce, uh, I think the high court started off with this speaking notes, so which are actually just uh a guide map to exactly the way council is going to produce, uh present their oral argument and not not a script, but just you know, this is the first topic.
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These are the dot points, this is these are the documents I will take you to.
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So, and that's fantastic because you will know then that that they are really the key documents because counsel will of course take you to the VEST documents that support their case, um, or the key parts of the transcript that'll support their case.
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So you'll have the written submissions and uh and the the oral uh outline of oral argument will also ideally cross-reference to the written submissions.
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So this topic is dealt with in pages 550 to 600 of the uh but at least then you know that they're not just sort of putting the written submissions aside and and going off and producing uh uh presenting a different case.
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Yeah.
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So in some recent hyperbole, have you had that?
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We we saw the the bench engaging with counsel on where are you now in this agenda.
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So that's exactly that.
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And it is it is to ensure that that there is consistency between the oral argument and the written submissions and provides a great uh roadmap.
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I think it's a good it's a good discipline to impose on counsel as well.
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Sounds like something, yeah.
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Yeah, I suppose as well a uh it where the timetable of the court permits, a short gap between the close of evidence and the giving of oral submissions might allow the court to take a breath and actually read some stuff before the oral closing.
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It's that's a it's a it's an interesting balance because sometimes you really would like to get straight into oral argument because the fresh evidence is fresh in your mind and and you can i i if if if it's a case it depends on some uh witnesses demeanour or the or their oral evidence you can engage with it's fresh in your mind, you can engage with it straight away.
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Um but it's not easy.
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It's not it's not easy on the parties either, and and that that what happens then is that because counsel have been presenting the case, they're not as intimately involved in the written submissions that are produced, so it's a it's a fine balance.
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I remember one of the biggest cases I did many years ago, an excellent silk came back, I think it was a 12-week hearing, and he came back after the first day.
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I was quite junior and started writing.
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I said, Oh, you know, what are you doing?
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And he's I'm writing the closing.
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And I'm like, We've just had the first day.
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He's like, doesn't it?
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So the really good ones capture what they've done each day and then build so it gives them hopefully a decent chance, a fighting chance to be able to go into closings pretty quickly.
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Yeah.
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But look, judges also realise that it's often difficult to get senior counsel to engage with you at the very early stages of the litigation, and that and so where we we don't um at least I'm speaking for myself, I can't speak for anyone else, um, hold it against the parties for that's good of you.
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It's the art of it possible.
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Well, you know, and and that's that's why uh it's entirely understandable that parties will uh, you know, the just in case syndrome, they will include every document in the bundle and they will plead the case that way because you know they don't want to get to a conference with senior counsel a week out from the trial and they'll go, why didn't you plead that case?
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Yeah, so it's perfectly understandable.
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But if you can get um counsel to focus on their closing address right at the outset, how am I going to put this case?
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I mean interesting.
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Probably an old discipline that maybe not.
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Yeah, I think that's probably right.
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And look, counsel understand that um all the judge wants is to know what the key issues are and what what is the easiest way to get home and decide this case and decide what are the real key issues?
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So speaking of the burden on the court, another area of complexity is not just the size and shape of the case, but sometimes the subject matter is incredibly complex, uh commercially or or scientifically or what have you.
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We've seen occasionally the federal court judges sit with an assessor during a trial.
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Uh I wonder, do you see more of a role for that kind of function as we move into these highly specialist disputes or or some other techniques that you think to help the court actually assimilate this enormous amount of information in a way that maybe is the best.
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That's an interesting question.
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I mean, I know that some judges are far more willing to involve referees and refer cases out than others.
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I think that if you're going to do that, well, firstly, you can't completely abdicate the court's role.
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I mean, at the end of the day, it's a matter for us to decide.
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I think that can work in cases where what is involved in matters of science or technology.
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But I think that I I speaking entirely for myself, I'd be fairly reluctant to do that unless there was essentially cooperation between the parties and they agreed that that would be the most efficient and cost-effective way.
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Because if you if the parties aren't agreeable to that, then you'll end up having an argument about whether the referee's report should be adopted anyway, and so it becomes counterproductive.
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And there can be issues, often the in large litigation, the parties will have already retained the most experienced um experts in that area.
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And so, how do you get a referee to decide who who is going to decide between the two most eminent people in the so I I've found, I mean, one thing that is absolutely essential, I think, in these cases is for there to be, and most cases in our court would do this now, is joint reports in a conclave.
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And I will usually get either a registrar or if depending on it, the parties agreeing, to someone basically bringing the experts together uh and not not in the absence of the lawyers and producing some sensible agreement about them.
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Yeah.
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And I've found that to be particularly effective in technical cases.
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And then and then you can have a conclave or joint evidence.
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I I hate the hot tub uh expression.
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But anyway, it's just conclave, I'll call it.
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Yeah.
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And so joint evidence.
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And my experience is in most cases that produces a great level of agreement or really defines the issues, but particularly if you've got experienced counsel.
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Not always.
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There are some disciplines where you'll never get agreement.
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No.
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Yeah.
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Economists.
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Lawyers right after them.
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Yeah.
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Perhaps.
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But um yeah, so I I mean I I think there is a role sometimes too for very discrete issues to be referred out to a referee.
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I haven't myself used an assessor sitting on the bench with me yet.
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That's that's interesting.
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But um, and you found the joint reports actually do help distill the issues so that the conclave proceeds fairly effectively.
00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:59.680
I think again, depending on the particular discipline involved, um I I was involved in the early stages of uh one of the um combustible panel cases, and there's some very technical issues there and and the expert.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:09.279
Experts who are leading experts from around the world had facilitated meetings and produced joint reports, and it just significantly narrowed the issues.
00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:12.160
Other cases doesn't always work.
00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:18.880
But uh yeah, certainly I think there's no one single way of approaching it, depends on the nature of the issues.
00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:22.640
I I had one other slightly tangential question.
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:26.559
It's a different sort of burden on the court, but it's at uh something closer to my own heart.
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:28.960
It's at a time of settlement of a class action.
00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:36.880
The court's role there possibly from a documentary perspective is lessened, but it's a heavy burden to nevertheless approve the settlement is fair and reasonable or not.
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:50.880
I know it's never been uh a rubber stamping process, but I I perceive that the courts are ever more scrutinous uh of class action settlements, particularly where you might have some stakeholders whose interests aren't always aligned.
00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:55.440
Uh and I know you've you've presided over many settlement approvals applications.
00:22:55.680 --> 00:23:01.200
Have you seen a change in the approach there by the parties or the court to to the to the settlement of class actions?
00:23:01.599 --> 00:23:04.079
Well, look, I I f I I find them quite challenging.
00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:09.680
I mean, I think the the ones that are particularly challenging is is where the settlement has occurred very late in the trial.
00:23:09.759 --> 00:23:15.519
Um when the evidence is concluded or you know, sometimes after the judgment's being reserved.
00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:19.759
So because inevitably it'll come to a judge who hasn't been involved in the litigation.
00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:31.680
So you you you you are having to scrutinize this settlement of a case that has the practitioners have been running for sometimes months and been involved in for years, and you come in afresh.
00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.480
And uh so that that presents a real challenge.
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:44.400
I I think I've had the good fortune of most of the cases that I've looked at, the actual terms of the settlement between the parties haven't been a particular issue.
00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:56.559
Of course, as you know, we we get a confidential opinion of council about the settlement, and uh usually the the terms of the settlement itself haven't been a major problem putting aside the settlement scheme, which I'll come back to separately in a moment.
00:23:57.279 --> 00:24:18.720
Uh but then of course the the thorny issue um that I think has been the subject of increased scrutiny in recent times is is legal costs and um and funding, which again is particularly with legal costs, is more acute if you've had the trial and and you know we are presented usually with either a referee's report or an expert's report about costs.
00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:28.000
Speaking again entirely for myself, I've spent my entire career trying to avoid getting involved in costs issues, so I'm just usually absolutely mortified to get this.
00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:37.359
Um so I have in more recent times, I mean I I used to be a lot very reluctant to get a contradictor involved because I was concerned about increasing costs.
00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:46.000
Every every bringing a contradictor, the costs go up, less goes to the parties or the the group members.
00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:52.079
But um in recent times I've found that that's been quite useful uh in relation to costs.
00:24:52.160 --> 00:25:08.400
But I but I think uh I was just reading with interest that uh I think Justice Beech's decision in the RoboDebt class action has just gone on appeal, so it'll be quite interesting because he shaved I think the um funding commission by 50% and shaved quite a bit off the costs as well.
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:08.880
Yep.
00:25:09.119 --> 00:25:19.200
I mean it's it's a difficult area because I mean at the end of the day we we have to scrutinize it to make sure the group members are getting um uh a proper return.
00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:21.519
But um it it it can be challenging.
00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:23.839
But I think courts are scrutinizing it.
00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:35.920
But the the great challenge is that there be consistency uh in relation to the application of the principles rather than just idiosyncratic uh approaches to you know uh how much they should get.
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:37.200
So it'll be very interesting to see.
00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:42.559
I mean, I know the full courts looked at this issue before, but it'll be very interesting to see how the full court addresses that.
00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:49.200
I'm not envious of the court either, in the sense that it's coming in when these costs have been occurred.
00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:57.759
And so it's a big move to shave commissions or to um to require lawyers to take haircuts because six years of litigation leads to costs.
00:25:58.160 --> 00:25:58.480
Absolutely.
00:25:58.799 --> 00:26:01.200
And so it's it's a real real challenge.
00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:12.880
And we we appreciate, particularly in when it comes to funding, that often these cases wouldn't even commence if there wasn't funding and and that and and so It's a difficult balance.
00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:14.720
It's a very difficult balance.
00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:22.319
So uh I I mean I I find particularly those larger cases that have run to trial, it can be quite challenging in that regard.
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:25.519
So um, well we we you've been very generous with your time.
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:28.160
Maybe just a couple of topics by way of conclusion, Judge.
00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:30.559
We're conscious that you've been very kind with us.
00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:44.799
While we're on class actions, just a general comment that they do seem to be presenting the some of the most difficult interlocutory issues and challenges, class closure, competing class actions, and all of the other complexities we've talked about.
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:52.880
Does it remain a major goal for the court to see how we can make these cases more cost-effective, move faster, simpler?
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:56.319
Yeah, look, it's it's funny because I mean people talk about class actions.
00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:59.680
I mean, at the end of the day, the the they're just a cause of action.
00:26:59.839 --> 00:27:00.400
Yeah, complex.
00:27:00.720 --> 00:27:06.960
The only thing that is different is that because it's a a class action, you've got these procedural issues.
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:11.039
Um and um they do take up an inordinate amount of time.
00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:18.880
I mean, I think I think to be fair, as the court's jurisprudence has developed, the less time is being taken up with some of those.
00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:27.759
Um I mean, of course, the a bit of a spanner was thrown into the works by the High Court and the Brewster litigation, but I think that's all settled down a bit now.
00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:35.279
So, I mean, uh at one stage I think the court was having some of the larger representative proceedings.
00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:42.079
There'd be a a case management judge who was just dealing with the procedural issues and then the judge who would be hearing the case proper.
00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:44.000
I think that that can work sometimes.
00:27:44.079 --> 00:27:54.960
So probably is it just a numbers problem with you probably don't have the luxury of judges who are just there to case manage all these class actions that the work has to spread across many of the judges in the court.
00:27:55.279 --> 00:27:57.920
And and there's different, I mean, there's different types of class actions.
00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:08.720
I mean, you'll I I think personally, I think mass product liability class actions are quite different from securities class actions in just about every respect, including at the settlement stage.
00:28:08.799 --> 00:28:12.000
I think one has to appreciate the differences between those sorts of cases.
00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:12.960
Yeah.
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:17.200
We we did want to ask one final question on a note of optimism.
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:23.680
Do you do you see the the pr practitioners and maybe the courts also rising to the challenges that we're seeing that we've been discussing today?
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:26.240
Is there a is there hope, light at the end of the tunnel, do you think?
00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:27.039
Oh, of course.
00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:31.839
You know, it's I mean it's in our all of our joint interests to see through these issues.
00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:38.480
And dare I mention it, it'll be interesting to see how artificial intelligence can factor into uh this.
00:28:38.559 --> 00:29:05.119
I'm I'm not sure it's a panacea because I think at the end of the day, a lot of the issues we've been talking about are best solved by experience, human judgment, judgment calls, um which I don't think I mean I'm no technology expert, but I can't see that artificial intelligence is going to really assist in those uh distinctly human elements of deciding, well, this is our strong case, we're gonna run with this.
00:29:05.200 --> 00:29:24.000
Uh I think um artificial intelligence may have um if it if it's uh uh harnessed properly and responsibly, I think, may be able to certainly cut down a lot of the drudgery involved in yeah document discovery and document cases, but at the end of the day, it's not going to um we're uh we it's not we're not gonna lose our jobs.
00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:24.480
No.
00:29:24.559 --> 00:29:31.440
Maybe we can assume the judge doesn't want more mountains of data and information later.
00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:32.400
So anyway.
00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:33.920
Yes.
00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:36.240
Your insights today, Judge, have been brilliant.
00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:39.759
I I know our audience will really appreciate it, and you've been very generous with your time.
00:29:39.839 --> 00:29:42.079
So uh Justice Whitney, thank you for joining the podcast.
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:42.559
We've got to be a good question.
00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:43.200
Thank you very much.
00:29:43.759 --> 00:29:44.160
Thank you very much.
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:45.119
Thanks.
00:29:46.079 --> 00:30:05.680
So, as we wrap up today's discussion, for all the participants in litigation, we think it seems pretty clear that we need to keep in mind how best to present our cases to the court in a way that focuses on the critical issues and avoids the just in case, every possible document or argument that's alive in the case.
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:29.279
The judge made reference to the High Court's practice of requiring a speaking agenda for each party on the morning before the argument, and we think that would be a really sensible discipline that law firms and their clients could embrace to ensure that there's early focus on the key issues, which should result hopefully in the most efficient and cost-effective outcomes for our clients.
00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:32.559
Thank you for joining us for On Just Terms.
00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:38.880
We hope you've enjoyed this conversation with Justice Wigney, and we look forward to welcoming you to our next episode.