Technology-Assisted Review (or TAR): is the use of technology to support your reviewers through the document review process. This could be anything from the basic automation of menial tasks to the complex algorithms found in cutting-edge ‘Continuous Active Learning’ technology.  

Being able to work with the very best Legal Tech has to offer is exciting and brings a great many benefits, however, due to the constantly evolving nature of cutting-edge technology, there is seldom any past precedent from which to draw conclusions on how new practices will be received by the courts. This often leaves room for doubt regarding what practices are admissible and defensible in a court of law. 

What Do the Rules Say? 

The rules governing the procedures British courts must follow in order to justly handle all cases were last updated in 1998 and apply to all cases commencing after 26th April 1999. While the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 make no specific mention of TAR, being published before this kind of technology rose to prominence, they do support the automation of the eDiscovery process.  

From CPR1998 pt.31b p.25-27 (see below) we find that the use of keyword searching, and other automated methods of searching are acceptable, so long as they are quality checked by a human reviewer/ not used as the sole method of searching without supervision. This gives a hint towards the court's willingness to accept emerging technology as it finds its place in legal procedure.