Much has been made of how modern the new "state-of-the-art" Rolls Building court complex is.
There are “super courts”, spiral staircases that hum with full wi-fi connectivity, and, perhaps most hyped of all, a “cutting edge” e-filing system designed to make the court paperless.
Speaking around the time of the court’s opening in August last year, Bar Council chair Michael Todd expressed excitement at this new era of e-working: "The idea is to have an almost paperless court. As lawyers, we are so accustomed to thumbing through bundles of paper. It should be possible to work with less paperwork."
Well, that was the idea. Sadly, though, nobody used the e-filing system because it worked so badly. And then last month it got axed.
An email obtained exclusively by Legal Cheek details how the “significant problems” the system encountered saw it permanently shut down on 20 April because the cost of fixing it would be too high.
I’ve published the email in full below.