Courting technology: why are some Hong Kong lawyers slow to adopt paperless legal process?
- Smaller firms, older lawyers and clerks hesitate over technical details of switching to e-documents
- Judiciary’s plans to hold more hearings remotely prompt questions about impact on criminal trials
Hong Kong lawyer Nick Chan Hiu-fung remembers the day he had to send two trainees and a young associate to deliver trial documents to about a dozen defendants and their lawyers within a day to satisfy court requirements.
“That took up a whole working day as they had to travel from Central to Lantau Island or the New Territories to the defendants,” he recalled. “It wasn’t a straightforward trip.”
A partner at law firm Squire Patton Boggs, he also said clerks often had to queue from as early as 6am to file documents stacked as tall as an adult for the courts. Sometimes, they made multiple trips.
No surprise then, that Hong Kong’s legal profession has welcomed the judiciary’s plans to roll out paperless proceedings at all levels in three to five years, with the aim of making electronic proceedings the default for cases heard.
Hong Kong’s legal system had long been criticised for lagging behind other common law jurisdictions in recognising electronic filing of legal papers.
Since last year, e-filing of legal papers has been allowed at the Hong Kong District Court for personal injury cases, tax claims, civil action and employees’ compensation cases, and simple cases at the Magistrate’s Court involving summonses.
