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In a recently published study on the next best steps for the country's legal system the Lord Chief Justice and his team judged that the courts are in a highly inefficient state through our institutional addiction to paper-based administration systems. Inadequate, dated information technology has also contributed to the problems: "Outdated IT systems severely impede the delivery of justice," with courts still using software designed in the 1980s or 1990s "precariously supported by outdated operating systems".

The government has agreed and has publicly committed no less than £780m to bring the court system up to date. Key to this wholesale commitment to modernity are a host of other recommendations for digital progress, including a new online-only court to decide cases worth up to £25,000, accompanied by a system-wide commitment to move off paper.

The Lord Chief Justice has highlighted that a central assumption of his review of the civil courts was strongly influenced by the fact that it was "now technically possible to free the courts from the constraints of storing, transmitting and communicating information on paper".

However, the study and many commentators on digital law acknowledge there are some major obstacles to conquer before we remove the paper, and it will be a "substantial, difficult and probably painful transitional period" before this frankly overdue move to paperless can be fully achieved. But for everyone who cares for British justice, this is a nonetheless a momentous decision.

WHY WE DESERVE FULLY-DIGITAL LAW
Of course, it's actually rather hard to believe that in the 21st-century, we are still talking about taking such steps - and not simply putting them in place. I don't say that purely from the point of view of someone working in the technology industry and helping businesses move to digital. I am also a great believer in a move to digital courts as a citizen.

For a start, the majority of the evidence courts are going to be looking at these days is increasingly electronic given how we live predominantly in cyberspace these days. How can trying the case using antiquated paper-based systems be appropriate? There is a mismatch there. It's like using quill pens to query spreadsheet-based accounting.

AVOIDING PAPERLESS DISASTERS
Some sceptics may say this paperless move is another face of the austerity agenda - namely, simply a way to drive cost out of the system by getting rid of clerks and other 'paper-pushers'. Of course that would be no bad thing if it made for a more efficient, streamlined system; 'Justice delayed is Justice denied', after all.

But I don't see either efficiency or cost as the sole justifications for a truly 21st century system of British justice. The main point has to be that if paperless means better, faster search of electronic records in a court case, then that has to translate to better evidential outcome.

If you can find a critical bit of evidence that proves a case one way or another by using the power of IT and not having to sift through mountains of paper, that is a wholly positive thing. And who can complain if cost savings at the court administration end of things lead to people like the CPS being able to deploy their resources to prosecute more criminals?

So, let's have a proper paperless justice system in place to help the taxpayer, the defendant and the prosecutor because all the stakeholders in the justice system will benefit.

At the same time, I am sensitive to worries that a drive to automate can be done in a poor and counterproductive way. We always need to design paperless systems from the point of view of the user in front of it all, not the bureaucrat sitting behind it. Expertise based on our experience implementing paperless initiatives for various business customers, large and small, may be instructive here.

First off: the importance of access. Employees throughout the court system need to always be able to get quick access to any document they need to perform their role at different points in the process.

That means a true best practice solution must put critical legal content not just in the hands of those who created it, but also in the hands of the people who need it to perform their role - in other words, everyone who needs to have visibility into legal or administrative documents so they can perform their tasks effectively and efficiently.

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