The Price of Technological Incompetence

Director, Review Services and Counsel

March 4, 2024

A recent ruling on costs from the Supreme Court of British Columbia highlights the risks for counsel who do not understand the appropriate use of generative AI and legal technology.

In Zhang v Chen, 2024 BCSC 285 (CanLII), Justice Masuhara made a rare cost order, requiring the respondent’s counsel, Ms. Ke, to pay costs personally for the additional effort and expense arising from listing two cases “hallucinated” by ChatGPT into the respondent’s Notice of Application.

Background

In a family custody dispute, counsel for the respondent, Ms.… Read More

Issues in the Recovery of eDiscovery Costs

Candice Chan-Glasgow

Director, Review Services and Counsel

October 25, 2023

A recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice illustrates the advantage of having eDiscovery counsel assist parties to understand costs implications and how to claim and oppose eDiscovery costs. In Bellsam Contracting Limited v. Torgerson, 2023 ONSC 5652 (CanLII), the defendants sought to recover certain of their eDiscovery-related costs and costs of preparing those costs submissions.

With respect to the eDiscovery costs, the defendants sought partial indemnity for time spent by an “eDiscovery Specialist” who downloaded the plaintiff’s productions, managed the production load files, added documents to the eDiscovery database, and performed quality control checks.… Read More

Document Production Disputes Exacerbate Access to Justice Challenges in Canada

Candice Chan-Glasgow

Director, Review Services and Counsel

August 28, 2023

Civil courts across the country are facing lengthy delays and backlogs. These growing delays increase costs and deny litigants the ability to access timely financial relief and move on with their lives. Indeed, delay is one of three barriers to access to justice specifically noted by Chief Justice Wagner in his 2018 remarks at the 7^th National Pro Bono Conference in Vancouver:

It can take a year or more even to get a date for a trial that might last two months. In the meantime, parties suffer financial losses or family disharmony; physical and mental health issues remain unresolved.… Read More

Heuristica Sponsors Legal Research Award

Heuristica is pleased to announce its sponsorship of an annual award at the University of Calgary Law School for the best legal research paper in the School’s Law 693 undergraduate E-Litigation course.

Heuristica congratulates the School, Dean Ian Holloway and Professor Gideon Christian for their initiative in establishing this important course — a first for a Canadian law school. The course provides students with hands-on training designed to familiarize them with technologies relevant to litigating in a digital environment, including artificial intelligence technologies used in e-discovery document review.

Heuristica, with offices in Toronto and Calgary is Canada’s only national law firm that specializes solely in electronic evidence and complex document review. … Read More

Preservation Obligations may change with new Auto-Expiration of Teams Meeting Recordings

Candice Chan-Glasgow

Director, Review Services and Counsel

February 7, 2022

Parties to anticipated litigation should be mindful of announced changes to the auto-expiration of Teams recordings and their preservation obligations once litigation is reasonably anticipated.

In July 2021, Microsoft announced the initial development of a new auto-expiration feature on Microsoft Teams meeting recordings stored on OneDrive and Sharepoint. On January 31, 2022, Microsoft announced that the default auto-expiration period for Teams recordings will increase to 120 days from the previously announced 60 days.

New recordings will be set to automatically expire 120 days after they are recorded if no action is taken.… Read More