eDiscovery Daily Blog

• December 11, 2014

In April, we covered a benchmarking study of eDiscovery Practices for Government Agencies conducted by Deloitte – their seventh annual such study.  You don’t have to wait a whole year for an update – their Eighth Annual Benchmarking Study of Electronic Discovery Practices for Government Agencies is available now.

This time, one hundred twenty four (124) professionals across 52 government agencies participated in the survey, with attorneys comprising 69% of the respondents (the next highest group was IT professionals with 10%).  Here are some key findings in the report:

• Internal systems and processes outweigh all other concerns when it comes to handling, processing, reviewing or producing electronically stored information (ESI), with 43% of respondents identifying it as the number one concern, up 17% from last year and more than twice the runner-up, Budgetary issues/constraints, with 21%.
• Individual confidence is on the upswing as 79% of respondents felt as confident or more confident in their ability to manage eDiscovery in their cases as last year.  But, agency confidence is still a concern as 72% of respondents feel somewhat or not at all effective in their agency’s ability to deal with the challenges of eDiscovery and 74% of respondents feel somewhat or not at all confident that if challenged their agency could demonstrate that their ESI was “accurate, accessible, complete, and trustworthy”.
• Use of predictive coding is on the rise as 23% of respondents indicated having used predictive coding in any of their cases, up from 17% last year and 6% in 2012.
• Collection from mobile devices in eDiscovery is becoming more common as 26% of respondents have collected data from smart phones or tablets in their eDiscovery matters.

These are some sample findings.  For a complete list of findings, once again available in a condensed, one-page USA Today style infographic, click here to download.  The report is free!

So, what do you think?  Do you work for, or with, government agencies?  If so, do any of these findings surprise you?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.