It is now more than five years since the GDPR propelled the issue of data protection into the forefront of legal practitioners' minds. Alongside assisting their clients to navigate the new regime, practitioners had to grapple with how it applied to legal practice - including the conduct of litigation, given that the GDPR's demands seemed to clash with established English court procedure.
While there are statutory provisions specifically governing the use of data for legal-related purposes, these are complex and sometimes appear to give rise to more questions than answers. A stream of case law exploring the issue was predicted.
Surprisingly, that did not emerge - possibly due to a lack of appetite by parties and judges to grapple with the complexities of the legislation - but this absence of case law has led to much uncertainty for parties and their legal representatives as to how the GDPR should be applied to litigation practice. Then, like London buses, a number of court decisions have arrived in a short space of time, which provide some tentative reassurance as to the courts' likely approach.
Jan O’Neill looks at some of the more interesting recent decisions in an article published on Practical Law. Click here to read a copy.
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