Managing Litigation: E-Discovery Resources Survey Report

Learn how legal departments are using technology to better manage litigation and internal investigations.

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Complex Is Normal But Rarely Addressed

Today’s general counsel is faced with an increasingly difficult array of challenges: growing data volumes, pressure to operate like a business unit, and visibility into managing budgets and cases.

Where their matters have overlapping custodians, collections and productions, they tend to only buy the technology they need when they need it. The majority of legal departments (54 percent) said their litigation matters “frequently” have overlapping custodians, collections or productions. Meanwhile, 72 percent said they purchase e-discovery technology on an “as-needed” basis.

This, despite the fact that their e-discovery budgets aren’t getting any smaller. Almost half (49 percent) of respondents said they’ve increased their spending on e-discovery in the past two years, and another 23 percent said they are maintaining their current spending level (an average of 14.3 percent of litigation budget for respondents). Only 5 percent reported downsizing their spending over the past two years.

Organizations’ Piecemeal Approach to E-Discovery

49%Have increased spending for e-discovery

Base: 118

23%Spending for e-discovery has stayed the same

5%Have decreased their spending for e-discovery

23%Don’t know

E-discovery budget over the past two years

Timeframe of technology purchases

72%Purchase technology on an “as needed” basis

28%Purchase technology annually

Rising Budgets and Just-In-Time Spending Habits

In early 2017, Bloomberg BNA and Catalyst surveyed 130 chief legal officers, general counsel, and in-house corporate attorneys to gauge the role that technology plays in their discovery-related litigation matters. The results revealed a near-total permeation of e-discovery technology in corporate legal strategy: More than nine out of 10 respondents have either adopted e-discovery products or said they will do so in 2017.

What’s more, the survey respondents also admitted to hesitating to institute uniform procedures or platforms for addressing the bulk of discovery matters. About half of respondents still handle their discovery procedures as separate, individual matters. Only 19 percent have what they would consider a “Global Platform.” Even with e-discovery adoption rates as high as 78 percent, there seems to be a lack of ability to understand its value. In short, they’re chasing matters and not settling into developing longer term strategies to save on e-discovery costs and benefit from its advantages.

E-Discovery Cost, Data Volume, System Integration Are Concerns

The leading concerns of many legal departments as they adopt e-discovery technology are its cost and staying within their anticipated budget. Indeed, managing costs was the top e-discovery concern among respondents, with 42 percent citing costs as “very challenging.” Following closely, and tied at

36 percent, were managing large volumes of case data and integrating into other legal ops systems. Without purpose-built technology and BI reporting and analytics, it’s hard to point to the advantages of e-discovery platforms.

Yet, most of the corporate attorneys surveyed (62 percent) said they want centralized access to securely managed document repositories that would help reduce costs through the re-use of review procedures and previous attorney decisions. The majority (59 percent) also said that they would prefer to have these centralized repositories hosted in a reputable data center.

Many legal departments view the ability to reuse decisions and store documents centrally and securely as off in the future. But some legal departments are already there.

Legal Departments’ Biggest E-Discovery Challenges

Automation Is the Answer

Although many respondents are diligent about closely monitoring their e-discovery spending, pushing vendors to use advanced software and looking to centralize on e-discovery vendors, an even larger number are looking for further advantages and gains by using machine learning and data visualization.

About half of survey respondents said they have implemented strategies to encourage vendors to use advanced e-discovery software and to consolidate their vendors. But at the same time, they are searching for more automated and sophisticated solutions. Four

out of five users (80 percent) are either implementing or considering implementing machine learning and are encouraging their vendors and counsel to use it as well.

Of those using advanced e-discovery platforms, 72 percent are looking to use data visualization and visual analytics to better manage their organization and to make better decisions with the case and financial data they create around matters.

Cost-Efficient E-Discovery Strategies: Present and Future

More closely monitor e-discovery spending

Cost-E�cient E-Discovery Strategies: Present and Future

Use automation and customization where possible

Encourage counsel and vendors to use advanced e-discovery software

Centralize on one or a small number of vendors to provide services

Perform a greater proportion of e-discovery work in-house

Enter into special pricing arrangements with one or more e-discovery vendors

Enter into special pricing arrangements with one or more review vendors

Centralize on one or a small number of law firms to provide discovery services

Contract directly with a review provider

Encourage counsel and vendors to use machine learning

Use data visualization and visual analytics

Increase the number of internal employees

60%

53%

51%

49%

43%

40%

36%

32%

32%

27%

22%

20%

33%

39%

43%

43%

35%

48%

50%

37%

36%

53%

50%

31%

Implemented Considering

0617 JO-23888

40%Early case assessment

Base: 118

Percentages reflect use of TAR/predictive coding during the past two years.

37%Privilege review

13%Analysis of incoming productionfrom opposing party

23%Internal investigation

50%Identify “hot”or keydocuments

25%Issue coding

14%Concern about cost

25%Quality control

20%Deposition preparation

12%Compliance or information governance

9%Concern about TAR technology

57%Review of documents to be produced

5%Concern about defensibility

73% TAR users 27% TAR non-users

64%Never had the right case

5%Conflicting claims among di�erent TAR providers

Who Uses TAR and Who Doesn’t—And Why

Of those who use e-discovery tools regularly (or plan to this year), almost three-quarters (73 percent) said they have used TAR in the past two years. The most frequent range of TAR use was between one and five cases over the past two years. For the remainder who haven’t used TAR, 64 percent felt they hadn’t yet had the right cases to take advantage of machine learning-based technology.

Meanwhile, review of documents to be produced (57 percent) was at the top of the list of reasons why respondents had taken advantage of this advanced technology, followed by identifying hot or key documents (50 percent), early case assessment (40 percent), and privilege review (37 percent).

Catalyst designs, hosts and services the world’s fastest and most powerful document repositories for large-scale discovery and regulatory compliance. For more than 15 years, corporations and their counsel have relied on Catalyst to help reduce litigation costs and take control of complex legal matters. To learn more, visit catalystsecure.com or follow the company on Twitter at@CatalystSecure.