우리나라에 근대 사법제도가 도입된 이래 가장 큰 변혁은 전자소송시스템의 도입이다. 전자소송제도는 정부는 물론이고 사기업에도 직접적으로 많은 영향을 미치게 될 것이다. 혹자는 전자소송시스템과 기업의 경영 사이에 무슨 함수관계가 있겠는가? 라는 물음을 던질 수 있을는지 모르겠다. 하지만 이런 생각은 현상에 대한 잘못된 이해에서 비롯된 것이다. 미국의 예에서 보듯이 전자소송제도의 도입은 기업들로 하여금 엄청난 경영환경의 변화를 요구하고 있다. 아직 미국의 증거개시제도와 같은 소송법적 제도가 우리 소송법에 도입되어 있지 않아서 전자소송시스템이 도입된다 하더라도 당장은 기업에 미치는 영향이 크지 않겠지만 머지않아 시스템사용이 일반화 된다면 전자증거개시제도가 자연스럽게 도입될 것이라고 믿어 의심하지 않는다. 그때 가서 기업들이 경영시스템의 변경을 하고자 한다면 이는 변화에 적응을 하지 못한 낙오자가 될 것이다. 필자는 본고를 통하여 미국의 예를 타산지석으로 삼아 우리 기업들이 신속하게 전자소송시스템의 적응을 위한 자세교정을 해야 한다는 점을 지적하고자 한다. 특히 전자증거개시제도의 도입과 정보기술(IT)을 기반으로 한 기업의 인프라 구축이 필요하고, 법무담당 부서와 경영진의 관심 고양 및 준법감시팀 주도의 정보기술부서 통합이 필요함을 역설한다. 나아가 자료관리 구축시스템의 확대가 필요한 이유도 제시한다.

Since the modern judicial system was brought in Korea, one century and a decade have gone by, and then the electronic filing system (EFS) was introduced, which is probably one of the most significant changes in the judicial environment. Some say there is no significant symbiosis between the EFS and a firm’s management. However, such a naïve comment is an easygoing way of thinking and mishandling the case. If you are a person who have same point of view, I sincerely advise you to correct your view. Like shown in the U.S. case, the adoption of EFS requires enterprises to keep up with the rapid change of their management system. Long and short term agendas also keep following the shifted managerial environment under the revision of the Rule. Any effort to chronicle all of the ramifications and impacts of the adoption of EFS to replace the paper filing systems is considerably beyond the scope of this study and would require foresight not possessed by the authors. However, there are some important specific implications that do not require inordinate speculation. This article attempts to briefly describe the more obvious impacts that firms, lawyers, and the managements can expect through the migration to EFS. Courts have created paper-based systems, which attempt to organize and store those billions of documents, as well as the huge number of documents generated by the courts themselves. In addition to creating paper-based filing systems to store documents, court staffs also manually extract and enter certain information from these filings for use in the court’s internal Case Management Systems (CMS). When EFS is fully implemented, as a matter of course, there will be no paper-based record systems. Information in electronic record systems will be collected, recorded, searched, and distributed electronically. Assuming parties of those records are authorized to have access, a nearly unlimited number of people and firms, if they have some interest with pending case and only after they got court allowance, can have simultaneous access to the electronic records. Because such records will not be moved from place to place, or person to person, it is less likely to be misfiled. They can be available at all hours of the day, regardless of whether the court is open or closed. Since the information from those records will be automatically served and distributed electronically to litigants and receiving courts, the potential for errors is also greatly reduced. Moreover, no longer do information seekers (i.e., litigant, eyewitness, attorney, government agents, and researchers) need to manually search through file drawers or racks for binders to locate information in paper records. Instead, the searching can be done electronically and remotely through viewer in any place. To give some idea of the potential differences in efficiency, consider the speed of the modern electronic search engines used on the Internet. For court-related documents alone, the efficiency of immediately linking to, excerpting, or quoting from pleadings and court materials could more than streamline the practice of law. A nearly unlimited number of searchers could simultaneously retrieve such information around the clock. There is no need to re-file because the file is never moved. Those thoughts, and the logical next steps, begin to provide some idea of why universally mandated EFS is probably inevitable. I am sure of the smooth planting of the electronic discovery into Korean law in a short time after adopting the EFS. Even if it seems that currently the usage of EFS has a repercussion on the individual business association, the practice using EFS will make a soft landing in the legal field. However, the corporation would be dropped in the march of the age of limitless global competition, if the entities start to cross the bridge when the epochal changes come to it. I therefore insist that the company, regardless of its size, must note that U.S. firm’s shipwreck should be its seamark. The aim of the argument and explanation in this paper is to suggest that the Korean firm correct their posture at an early stage of the EFS introduction. That would be the best way to operate the firm efficiently.

Since the modern judicial system was brought in Korea, one century and a decade have gone by, and then the electronic filing system (EFS) was introduced, which is probably one of the most significant changes in the judicial environment. Some say there is no significant symbiosis between the EFS and a firm’s management. However, such a naïve comment is an easygoing way of thinking and mishandling the case. If you are a person who have same point of view, I sincerely advise you to correct your view. Like shown in the U.S. case, the adoption of EFS requires enterprises to keep up with the rapid change of their management system. Long and short term agendas also keep following the shifted managerial environment under the revision of the Rule. Any effort to chronicle all of the ramifications and impacts of the adoption of EFS to replace the paper filing systems is considerably beyond the scope of this study and would require foresight not possessed by the authors. However, there are some important specific implications that do not require inordinate speculation. This article attempts to briefly describe the more obvious impacts that firms, lawyers, and the managements can expect through the migration to EFS. Courts have created paper-based systems, which attempt to organize and store those billions of documents, as well as the huge number of documents generated by the courts themselves. In addition to creating paper-based filing systems to store documents, court staffs also manually extract and enter certain information from these filings for use in the court’s internal Case Management Systems (CMS). When EFS is fully implemented, as a matter of course, there will be no paper-based record systems. Information in electronic record systems will be collected, recorded, searched, and distributed electronically. Assuming parties of those records are authorized to have access, a nearly unlimited number of people and firms, if they have some interest with pending case and only after they got court allowance, can have simultaneous access to the electronic records. Because such records will not be moved from place to place, or person to person, it is less likely to be misfiled. They can be available at all hours of the day, regardless of whether the court is open or closed. Since the information from those records will be automatically served and distributed electronically to litigants and receiving courts, the potential for errors is also greatly reduced. Moreover, no longer do information seekers (i.e., litigant, eyewitness, attorney, government agents, and researchers) need to manually search through file drawers or racks for binders to locate information in paper records. Instead, the searching can be done electronically and remotely through viewer in any place. To give some idea of the potential differences in efficiency, consider the speed of the modern electronic search engines used on the Internet. For court-related documents alone, the efficiency of immediately linking to, excerpting, or quoting from pleadings and court materials could more than streamline the practice of law. A nearly unlimited number of searchers could simultaneously retrieve such information around the clock. There is no need to re-file because the file is never moved. Those thoughts, and the logical next steps, begin to provide some idea of why universally mandated EFS is probably inevitable. I am sure of the smooth planting of the electronic discovery into Korean law in a short time after adopting the EFS. Even if it seems that currently the usage of EFS has a repercussion on the individual business association, the practice using EFS will make a soft landing in the legal field. However, the corporation would be dropped in the march of the age of limitless global competition, if the entities start to cross the bridge when the epochal changes come to it. I therefore insist that the company, regardless of its size, must note that U.S. firm’s shipwreck should be its seamark. The aim of the argument and explanation in this paper is to suggest that the Korean firm correct their posture at an early stage of the EFS introduction. That would be the best way to operate the firm efficiently.

Electronic filing, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure, Archiving, Discovery, Electronic data, Aggregated computerization system