See what I did there?  😉  It’s time for another great survey from Rob Robinson and his terrific Complex Discovery blog.  This one is his semi-annual eDiscovery Pricing Survey, which is designed to provide insight into eDiscovery pricing through the lens of 15 specific questions answered by legal, business, security, and information professionals operating in the eDiscovery ecosystem.

As always, individuals are invited to participate semi-annually primarily by direct email invitation from Complex Discovery and leading industry educational partners to include the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS).

The summer 2020 survey response period was initiated on May 11, 2020, and closed on May 20, 2020. This was the fourth eDiscovery pricing survey conducted by Complex Discovery, the initial survey being conducted in December of 2018. 

This survey had 105 respondents, 88.5% of which were providers (Law Firm – 40%, Software and/or Services Provider – 37.1%, and Consultancy – 11.4%).  That’s 93(!) providers talking about eDiscovery pricing!

As I said before, talking about eDiscovery pricing in this industry is like talking about Fight Club, the first rule and second rule seems to be that you don’t talk about it.  Only Rob Robinson could get 93 people to talk about what isn’t talked about in this industry.

Of course, as was observed with Rob’s Spring 2020 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey (which I covered here), the current pandemic has already dramatically influenced the eDiscovery ecosystem in areas such as the delivery of services, the pulse rate of investigations and litigation, and the frequency of merger and acquisition activities. However, we are still in the early stages of understanding how the pandemic will directly impact the economics of eDiscovery.  So, how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected eDiscovery pricing?  I won’t steal Rob’s thunder in this blog, check out the survey results here.

So, what do you think?  Are you surprised by any of the pricing survey results?  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 my employer, partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.