Oops, I missed it again!  😉  Here’s the seventh annual edition of a survey of eDiscovery trends that is always “unfiltered”: Ari Kaplan Advisors’ Annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Report.

At the end of June, Ari Kaplan Advisors, a leading legal industry advisory company, released its seventh annual E-Discovery Unfiltered: A Survey of Current Trends and Candid Perspectives report, which features insights from corporate law department leaders and law firm partners about 27 eDiscovery vendors* and a variety of popular trends. The Annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Report highlights changing pricing patterns, market shifts, changes in document review preferences, and the challenges of navigating an expanding data landscape, among other topics.

For the Annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Report, Ari personally interviewed 27 individuals responsible for eDiscovery decision-making, including nine in-house lawyers, 10 in-house legal professionals, and eight law firm partners. All of the participants develop and implement eDiscovery processes. 89 percent select eDiscovery tools and vendors and 85 percent manage eDiscovery software and service providers.  So, needless to say, these people have personal experiences with various eDiscovery vendors and trends.

The report’s key findings include:

• 53 percent of the corporate respondents anticipate an increase in eDiscovery related to social media.
• 63 percent expect to transition to a cloud-based review platform.
• 65 percent predict an increase in eDiscovery related to data from virtual meetings, such as Teams, Zoom, and Webex, in 2021.
• 71 percent are uncertain about whether their organizations will permanently allow remote document review.
• 76 percent advise that continuous active learning is important in their document review workflow, though many acknowledge that the application of artificial intelligence is still in the early stages.
• 76 percent perform some eDiscovery tasks internally for which they previously used an outside provider.
• 82 percent engage in discovery beyond regulatory matters or litigation.
• 94 percent note that cost influences the decision of which eDiscovery platform to use.
• 94 percent use eDiscovery software for internal investigations.

In addition to offering public trends, Ari Kaplan Advisors prepares individual reports for subscribing vendors providing both detailed insights from their target customer base along with a comprehensive SWOT analysis to help guide their sales and marketing initiatives.  Here’s a link to the announcement for the report.

So, what do you think?  Are you surprised by any of the key findings above from the Annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Report?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

*The list of vendors under review is not meant to be comprehensive and the inclusion of a company in the discussion is not designed to indicate any market position. A primary purpose of the report is to provide the companies who invest in its content with direct insight on their businesses and an overview of their competitive landscape.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, 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.