Doug Austin

2022 State of the Industry Report is Now Available! Here’s How to Get It: eDiscovery Trends

In its second year, it has become a budding tradition! The 2022 State of the Industry Report is now available, and it’s FREE!

We thought we were moving past the COVID-19 pandemic twice in 2021, only to be brought back to reality, first with the Delta variant wave and then Omicron at the end of the year, which is currently raging and appears to be even more contagious.

For those of us in the eDiscovery industry, our challenges mirrored society’s challenges. Some of our organizations made and then changed plans for back to in-office work and for in-person conference attendance. Yet, business marches on. According to ComplexDiscovery, there were at least 54 mergers, acquisitions and investments (M&A+I) transactions – a 50% increase over 2020! eDiscovery professionals are learning how to master conducting discovery remotely, and the discovery we’re conducting is coming more from cloud-based ESI sources that reflect how society works today. When it comes to eDiscovery workflows, the only constant seems to be change.

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Or is it? That’s what we’re here to find out in the 2022 State of the Industry Report at eDiscovery Today!

eDiscovery Today launched its second annual State of the Industry Report Survey on November 17th, which (once again) consisted of ten questions and concluded it on December 8th.  And 281 of you responded – 98 more than last year!  That escalated quickly!  Here are some of the highlights from your responses:

  • The breakdown of respondents was Software or Service Provider (40.2%), Law Firm (28.1%), Consultancy (19.2%), Corporation (9.3%), Government Entity (1.8%) and Other (1.4%).
  • Because of the size of the survey and the number of respondents for the Law Firm, Software/Service Provider, Consultancy and Corporation categories, I have broken out the responses among those four demographics, so you can see how each segment has responded to the survey questions.
  • Over three of five respondents (62.3%) expect to continue to work remotely indefinitely, with another 20.6% expecting a return to a hybrid of WFH and in-office. But as you’ll see in the report, the pandemic may not have caused as much remote work as we think!
  • Only 23.8% of respondents said they attended at least one in-person conference in 2021, but a whopping 70.4%(!) expect to attend one in 2022, with another 17.1% still undecided.
  • Use predictive coding in litigation? 25.9% of respondents use it in all or most of their cases, but 36.3% of respondents use it in very few or none of their cases. How does that compare to last year’s survey? Check out the report!
  • Discovery of data from mobile devices or collaboration apps?  27.1% of respondents discover mobile devices in all/most of their cases, while 23.4% of respondents do in very few/none of their cases. For collaboration apps, it’s 24.7% and 37.3% respectively.

Once again, there’s a second component to the 2022 State of the Industry report.  I reached out to several industry thought leaders with questions about each of these survey areas and I have also included their observations* to add some additional perspective on these notable topics and trends as we head into 2022.  Hopefully, this provides a unique perspective from the industry as a whole and from the thought leader community!

So, how do you get the 43-page 2022 State of the Industry report?  If you are currently an email follower of the blog, or if you completed the survey, you will be receiving a link to the report later today.  If you’re not currently an email follower of the blog, you can get a FREE copy of the report (and any report eDiscovery Today publishes) simply by following the blog via email.  To follow eDiscovery Today, enter your email address at the top of the right sidebar where it says “Follow Blog via Email” to receive the report as well as emails with links to new posts.  It’s that easy!

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Thanks to Mary Mack, Kaylee Walstad and the EDRM team for your support and sponsorship once again to promote the 2022 State of the Industry Report!

So, what do you think?  Are you surprised by any of the survey results above?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

*Observations expressed in this report by thought leaders are their own and do not represent views of their employers, clients or partners.

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.

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