Eversheds Sutherland has rolled out new software for its disputes team, which will enable real-time collaboration with clients, barristers and witnesses on case materials, from instruction through to trial or settlement.

Global litigation co-head Paul Worth said the new cloud-based software, called CaseReady, can eliminate "lever-arch files of documents" and paper costs, which can run up to more than £30,000 during a case, and provide clients with time savings of at least 50%.

CaseReady has been purchased on a two-year enterprise licence from software company Opus 2 International, which will allow the software to be available for use with clients across all of the firm's offices around the world.

Worth told Legal Week that clients are now much savvier in the use of technology for automating routine work and "won't pay £100,000 for junior lawyers to look at documents if you can do it for £30,000 with technology".

Worth said: "Predictive coding might be the rockstar of litigation technology, but a shared cloud infrastructure for collaboration between lawyers, counsel, clients and experts is the unsung hero.

"Clearly, the client benefits from the cost savings but the real benefit of the platform, which I'm most excited about, is having this central dealroom for litigators. We can build up the analysis of a case in a central repository where all parties can see it at all times, without going back a year and a half through 10,000 emails."

According to Worth: "If my lawyers get a new case in and want to use CaseReady, they just ring up the litigation tech team, who sets them up. We don't have to go to an external provider to get the quote, and we don't need to pay an external provider to do it for us. It's become a part of our toolkit, just like a photocopier or a laptop."

On licensing the technology, Worth said: "We could have spent the money on hiring a couple of junior partners – the cost is equivalent – but we decided to invest in technology instead."

The latest venture comes after Eversheds Sutherland recently rolled out a global ideas platform across the firm's 66 offices, an initiative that co-CEO Lee Ranson believes will incentivise innovative projects across the firm.