It’s “catch up day” on a couple of topics I’ve been meaning to get to covering. Here’s the first! Earlier this month, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) published the 2020 Executive Summary, part of the upcoming annual Technology Survey, which should be published any day now!
ILTA’s most prestigious publication each year is their annual Technology Survey, which “provides substantive data against which you can benchmark your organization’s technology implementations and future plans”. This year’s survey reports the input of 470 firms representing about 104,000 attorneys and 208,000 total users. Not surprisingly, this year’s survey has incorporated a new section related to COVID-19 and the free Executive Summary’s narrative (available with a valid login ID) is designed to address some of the lingering, and possibly enduring, effects that COVID-19 has on the legal technology landscape. Here’s a sampling of some of the findings provided in the Exec Summary:
- Which of the following solutions being utilized by your firm are located in the Cloud or are being migrated to the Cloud within the next 12 months?: Email security was first with 60 percent of respondents, followed by Payroll with 58 percent, Email with 50 percent, Email archiving with 49 percent (I sense a trend here) and then eDiscovery rounding out the top five at 41 percent.
- Which primary email platform do you expect to be on 12 months from now?: Microsoft 365 or Exchange Online (subscription service) was the top choice over other Exchange choices in every size firm (<50 attys-68 percent, 50-149 attys-59 percent, 150-349 attys-66 percent, 350-699 attys-50 percent and 700+ attys-55 percent). It should be noted that for the top two tiers, Microsoft 365 or Exchange Online (subscription service) is not currently the top choice – it’s currently second for 350-699 attys and currently fifth for 700+ attys.
- Which video conferencing software (desktop, laptop, phone) does your firm use?: Not surprisingly, Zoom was the top choice with 71 percent (only 34 percent last year) while Microsoft Teams was at 48 percent (only 12 percent last year). Clearly, some organizations use both and use of video conferencing platforms is up a lot (not surprisingly).
The 2020 Tech Survey will be available for pre-purchase for $400 for ILTA Members and $700 for non-ILTA members. You may pre-order the 2020 Tech Survey here.
Please note: if your firm participated in the Survey or if you are an ILTA Corporate Member, ILTAMAX, or Platinum sponsor, the Survey is free to you once published. A list of 2020 participating firms is available at the bottom of the page here.
So, what do you think? Are you surprised at the trend toward cloud solutions and video conferencing or are you surprised those trends aren’t higher? 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 authors and speakers themselves, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my 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.