LLM students at The School of Law, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), will this October be the first in the UK to be part of a new academic course in e-disclosure.
Teaching will be delivered by leading lawyers and practitioners in this new area of law, and students will undergo hands-on training using leading e-disclosure software, Relativity by KCura.
Ian Walden, Professor of Information and Communications Law at QMUL’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) said: “e-disclosure is now firmly at the heart of modern legal practice. It is a world wide application of electronically stored information that will present new challenges for lawyers. For students to receive training by the leading experts in this field and get hands on training with Relativity, is a huge opportunity.”
The course was conceived by Maggi Healey, a former litigator who now specialises in e-disclosure at The Review People. Training in the Relativity software will be provided through expert tuition by Jon Chan of Anexsys.
Professor Walden said: “The environment in which our students will work spans the full range of digital and electronic material including emails, presentations, voicemail, databases, audio and video files, social media posts, and web sites. It’s critical that law students are able to fully interact with this sort of content from day one in their careers.”
The Master of Laws (LLM) is available to study full-time for one year or part-time for two years. The 11 week module forms part of QMUL’s LLM programme. The students will be marked on an essay basis for 80 per cent and 20 per cent on a practical basis.
Professor Walden said: “This is an area for which the legal profession has had to ‘tool up’ very quickly. At the broad level, e-disclosure presents all sorts of challenges in terms of using electronic data, this material must be properly understood if it is to be preserved and used as part of a legal case. We are also operating in a big volume environment – the sheer amount of information that needs to be acquired, analysed, and properly accounted for is – in itself – a significant challenge.”
Mark ByrnePublic Relations ManagerQueen Mary University of LondonT: 020 7882 5378M: 078 1590 2560E: m.byrne@qmul.ac.uk
The Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS) at Queen Mary University of London specialises in the knowledge and skills in commercial law that can be placed at the service of government, public bodies, overseas institutions, the legal profession, industry and commerce.
The Centre for Commercial Law Studies is based in the heart of legal London at the postgraduate law centre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. CCLS and the Department of Law are the two departments within the School of Law at Russell Group Member, Queen Mary University of London.