The Inevitability Of Predictive Coding In International Arbitration

1. INTRODUCTION¹

International arbitration cannot withstand the inexorable march of technological progress any more than the national courts with which it competes for jurisdiction.² As recently as this month, Clifford Chance – a leading law firm – announced a comprehensive training programme for its lawyers that covers cybersecurity, block chain technology and predictive coding.³ In this article, I will argue that predictive coding can, and should, bring efficiency gains and costs savings to the document production phase, and thus the arbitration process overall.⁴ given the flexibility already inherent within the arbitral process, predictive coding can, and should, fit into proceedings without any need for changes to arbitration laws or institutional rules.⁵ In all likelihood, it is already doing so. examples of quick adoption in other jurisdictions indicate that predictive coding is likely to become commonplace sooner than many practitioners expect.