eDiscovery Daily Blog

• March 27, 2012

 

A new survey from Robert Half Legal eDiscovery Services finds that spending by organizations on electronic discovery-related services grew in 2011 and should continue to increase through 2013.  According to the survey of 350 attorneys in large law firms and corporations in the US and Canada, 23 percent of attorneys surveyed said their law firms and corporate legal departments increased eDiscovery expenditures in the last year, with 71 percent indicating that spending remained the same and just 2 percent indicating that they reduced spending.  For 2012 and 2013, nearly one-third (33 percent) of attorneys expected to increase spending on eDiscovery, while 56 percent expect no change in spending and 4 percent expect to decrease eDiscovery spending.

Other interesting findings from the survey include:

• 27 percent of attorneys surveyed indicated that they don’t currently have a standard operating procedure in place in the event they receive an unexpected request for discovery;
• 15 percent of survey participants are “not at all confident” that their organization has an eDiscovery plan in place to respond to a request for cloud-based information in response to a regulatory request or litigation;
• 22 percent of attorneys surveyed are “not at all confident” that their organization has an eDiscovery plan in place to respond to a request for information from social media sites in response to a regulatory request or litigation;
• Survey respondents indicated that their organization has received an average of 16 external requests for electronically stored information (ESI) in the last three years;
• 12 percent of attorneys surveyed stated that issues or problems with collecting or reviewing ESI negatively affected a case or ruling for their law firm or company in the last three years;
• 22 percent of responding corporate lawyers said their organization increased its handling of eDiscovery projects in house within the last year.

This study, and the IBISWorld study from last fall, point to continued growth in eDiscovery activities and spending.  It seems apparent that, as data within the world continues to double every 1.5 to 2 years, many law firms and corporations are having to “ramp up” to meet their eDiscovery obligations.

So, what do you think?  Do these results surprise you?  If so, are they higher or lower than you expected?  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.