eDiscovery in Northern Ireland: An Introduction and Judicial Perspective

The Honourable Mr Justice Horner was educated at Campbell College which he leftin 1974. He then attended St Catharine’s College, Cambridge from 1975-1978 . He was called to the Bar in 1979. He was appointed a QC in 1996. At the Bar he had a wide and varied practice with a particular interest in commercial disputes, Chancery and professional negligence cases and personal injury litigation. Mr Justice Horner was appointed as a High Court Judge in Northern Ireland on 5 September 2012.

His areas of special interest include practice and procedure in this and other jurisdictions, chancery, commercial litigation and public law. He is the Chairman of the Judges’ Council, Chairman of Northern Ireland subcommittee of European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ) looking into minimum standards for judges across Europe and President of the Lands Tribunal. He is the current President of the NI Medico Legal Society. He is judge currently in charge of the Commercial List and will be looking after the new Property and Business Hub and the listing of cases for hearing.

Jonathan is a renowned paper and electronic discovery/disclosure veteran, with an unparalleled 38 years’ experience in the field: 29 years in international law firms and nine years in international consultancies. He speaks and writes on the subject widely and has been involved in developing civil procedure in England & Wales to respond to the modern demands of litigating in the digital age.

Andrew is an Associate Director within Baker McKenzie’s Alternative Legal Services team. As head of the Contentious Support Group, he has responsibility for teams of fee earners across Baker McKenzie’s Belfast and Tampa offices, working with the Firm’s Global eDiscovery & Data Advisory team to deliver bespoke solutions to clients’ legal problems. A Solicitor qualified in both Northern Ireland and England & Wales, Andrew has a decade of experience in leading and managing teams on large scale eDiscovery projects.

Jonathan was appointed Managing Director on 2 May 2017. Since his appointment, he has primarily focused upon driving the company forward with significant investment in IT, Business Development and the expansion of both our professional team and the range of our legal services. As a result, our services have become more streamlined and client focused, with innovative legal solutions being tailored to address our clients’ complex commercial issues and business requirements.

Matthew McKee is a Manager in the Grant Thornton NIForensic & Investigations Team. He specialises in Legal Technology and Digital Forensics, helping lawyers utilise cutting edge technologies to solve many of the challenges faced in modern legal practice. A Solicitor qualified in Northern Ireland in 2009, Matthew has an undergraduate degree in Law from Queen’s University Belfast, and held roles in several major Irish and International Law Firms prior to joining Grant Thornton. He has in-depth knowledge and experience of every aspect of eDiscovery and over the last 10 years has assisted clients around the world in finding innovative and effective technological solutions to complex legal problems.

Greg leads the EMEA region for LDM Global. With more than 15 years’ experience in legal technology and business transformation, Greg has worked in three of Ireland’s top five premier law firms, working on a number of high-profile investigations and disputes across Europe. Greg was part of the largest in-house eDiscovery team in Ireland, including assisting with the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme litigation. Currently, Greg assists companies across Europe on navigating and responding to Data Subject Access Requests related to GDPR.In addition, Greg is the founding member and president of the Association of Certified e-Discovery Specialists’ Ireland chapter.