Case Study by Elit Lawyers and FTI Consulting
The owners of Melbourne’s iconic theatres, including The Princess Theatre, Regent Theatre and Comedy Theatre, sought indemnity from their insurer for business interruption losses arising from closures of the theatres during the COVID 19 pandemic. Their insurers denied full coverage. The Marriner Group entities engaged specialised policy holder law firm, Elit Lawyers to institute proceedings in the Insurance List of the Supreme Court of Victoria against the large insurer. Faced with a tight lead time to trial and complex document requirements, Elit Lawyers collaborated with FTI Consulting to help their clients manage the discovery process and an aggressive trial deadline.
Tackling tight timelines and complex discovery requirements
The Princess Theatre, Regent Theatre, Comedy Theatre, Forum Theatre and Plaza Ballroom, have been run by the same family for nearly 40 years. The owners challenged their insurers after significant losses were incurred following Victoria’s strict lockdown regime during the COVID 19 pandemic.
The clients were required to produce voluminous discovery which involved finding and locating thousands of disparate emails and other documents that were sent and received by them to third parties over the critical lockdown periods. This included emails to government authorities, international producers and other stakeholders. Elit Lawyers and FTI Consulting worked together to perform effective keyword searches and document reviews in order to extract the critical and discoverable documents.
With only a seven week notice period for the trial and the need to engage new Senior Counsel due to availability issues, the clients were required to act quickly to prepare summaries and collate the relevant documents for trial aids, including electronic court book, in a short period of time.
Given the complexity of the document requirements and the tight timeframe, Elit Lawyers engaged FTI Consulting to support their client’s eDiscovery obligations and to prepare and assemble an electronic court book for trial.
From Onsite Collection to Targeted Review
FTI Consulting’s digital forensics experts were onsite at the client’s premises to secure, access and collect relevant inboxes for key custodians and data on a shared drive.
FTI Consulting‘s team took custody of the files, then processed them electronically – extracting meta data, deduplicating, converting to PDF and making them text searchable – in accordance with the Supreme Court of Victoria’s civil procedure rules for document production.
The team searched emails for keywords and identified relevant file paths for review from the shared drive. They established a discovery database to upload and index documents for further investigation. The Elit team reviewed the files and produced discovery along with several productions by the opposing party. More than 500,000 files were processed and uploaded to an eDiscovery database. The team then analysed the set, used keywords to identify a smaller subset and prepared it for first pass review and subsequent exchange.
As the plaintiff, the client was keen to proceed to trial, but the court would not set a trial date until all interlocutory steps were completed. Over three years into the case against the large insurer, the trial was expected to be set down in the second half of the year.
However, the judge had a small window to hear the case earlier. This left Elit Lawyers with a conundrum – whether there was sufficient time to prepare and push forward with the earlier trial date in the interest of their clients. Elit Lawyers agreed to forge ahead with the truncated timeline, briefed new imminent Senior Counsel and collated a plan to prepare an electronic court book.
FTI Consulting automated a hyperlinking process, enabling seamless cross referencing between all relevant court materials. The resulting electronic court book gave counsel easy access during trial to support their case, while reducing both the client’s legal costs and time needed to run the proceedings.
Levelling the Playing Field – and Winning Big
The collaboration between Elit Lawyers and FTI Consulting delivered a decisive victory for the Marriner Group entities, when His Honour Justice Osbourne found in their favour. Despite tight preparation deadlines, the team’s strategic use of technology and seamless partnership paid off:
- Secured $2.8 million damages award – significantly above the insurer’s previous offer
- Delivered a user-friendly, cross-referenceable electronic court book, praised by the judge, shortening the trial and reducing costs
- Provided electronic tender references and additional information, sought by the judge at the conclusion of each day’s trial
- FTI Consulting acted as an extension of Elit’s team, enabling them to match a larger lawfirm with in-house discovery and IT teams.
- Advanced Elit’s mission to level the playing field for insurance policyholders, ensuring fair treatment and maximum recovery.
- Leveraged technology to deliver cost effective and time efficient solutions, giving the client access to justice and a stellar result in their “bet the farm” case.
Through expertise, innovation and a strong partnership, Elit Lawyers and FTI Consulting turned a compressed trial window into a landmark win for their client.
Danielle Snell, Managing Partner & Co-Founder
[email protected] | 0401 812 885
Michael Khoury, Senior Managing Director, Head of Australia Technology at FTI Consulting
[email protected] | 0404 062 893