CNA Explains: Why are lawyers using so much paper for court cases in this digital day and age?
Printing costs in recent court cases ran into the thousands of dollars as hard copies are still required for some court proceedings.
Singaporean law firms continue to incur substantial printing expenses in court cases despite a shift towards electronic filings and AI-powered courtrooms. In the recent Bloomberg defamation case, the printing costs amounted to more than S$35,000. A Prudential Assurance Company Singapore case resulted in a disbursement of over S$8,000, including S$3,000 for printing-related charges.
These costs are typically sought by the winning party against the losing party as part of disbursements, covering miscellaneous expenses like filing, postage, and transport. Mr Jonathan Tan, a partner at Withers KhattarWong, explains that hard copies are required for certain matters, such as appeals, as the Singapore Court system embraces technology.
Hearing bundles, which contain written submissions, legal authorities, affidavits, expert reports, and other documentary evidence, are often printed, as judges and lawyers prefer to refer to and work off hard copies. Mr Ng Yuan Siang, a former associate director at Eugene Thuraisingam LLP, notes that printing costs in disbursements vary significantly depending on the complexity of the case.
For simple pre-trial applications, printing costs range from the high double digits to low hundreds, while complex trials can incur printing costs in the thousands. He emphasizes that not all documents in a case need to be printed, but hard copies are still essential for certain trials and witnesses to ensure everyone has the necessary reference material.
Written by urgent.news from CNA - Singapore's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
