미국 증거개시의 비용과 공정성: 법적 규제와 리걸테크(Legal Tech) 활용의 관점에서

The pre-trial evidentiary process, including discovery in the U.S., empowers parties in disparate positions to acquire information supporting their claims and ensures judicial accessibility and fair adjudication between parties, thereby conferring substantial benefits. However, in the United States, where frequent discovery is commonplace, the substantial cost of discovery has become a concern, resulting in multiple revisions of the FRCP aimed at limiting the scope and application of discovery. The core reasons for these revisions can be traced to information and cost asymmetry. Under the Americanstyle discovery process, the costs are borne by the person submitting the material rather than the applicant, who seeks discovery under an information imbalance to obtain a favorable outcome. Although various amendments have been made to the FRCP to address the issue of discovery costs, concerns have been raised regarding whether the cost of discovery has been accurately assessed and whether procedural fairness has been undermined in favor of cost reduction. Furthermore, the use of diverse legal technologies has led to increased precision and efficiency in information processing, enabling accurate identification of relevant information within large datasets, and thereby, enhancing the efficacy of the discovery process. Despite prolonged discussions and the recognized need for the introduction of a Korean-style discovery process, it has not been implemented due, in part, to concerns about the cost of discovery. In this regard, it would be significant to conduct a study examining the efficiency and cost of discovery based on an analysis of the procedural fairness of the discovery process. Additionally, this study would investigate the impact of regulations through FRCP and the use of legal technologies to improve efficiency, including the influence of these measures on the cost of discovery and, ultimately, on fair discovery.