Boroughs from south of the river lead in provision of Digital Courtroom Solution
London’s Central Family Court has been equipped with a new digital solution to standardise the storage and speed up searches of case documents.
A group of local authorities that refer child protection cases to the court – Southwark and the four members of the South London Legal Partnership – led in the installation of the Digital Courtroom Solution, taking it from pilot to ‘go live’ in six weeks. The court has now begun to hear cases that use the system.
It combines services from three organisations: Project Fusion provides the data room for secure housing of the documents; Zylpha provides e-bundling software that makes it possible to update, repaginate and distribute documents quickly; and the South London Legal Partnership – which consists of Kingston, Merton, Sutton and Richmond councils – is responsible for technical support.
Philip Barker, Southwark’s deputy business manager for legal services, finance and governance, said: “Trial bundles are now securely delivered using data rooms rather than outdated and unreliable couriers or the DX paper system.
“This secure digital delivery solution has revolutionised the way the Child Care Legal Team functions. In short, it has standardised the way that lawyers store documents ready to be converted into the electronic bundle using Zylpha, making it easy for anyone to search for and locate case documents quickly.
“Beyond this, the control and ease with which the Project Fusion Data Rooms can be created has also removed the stress of dealing with couriers or catching the DX.
“Although there are set-up costs, we truly believe that this solution will save the council thousands of pounds and free up valuable time.”
Image: Central Family Court, London, from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
