How did I miss this?  Oh, two conferences in three weeks, that’s how. 😉  Earlier this month, Norton Rose Fulbright released its seventeenth annual litigation trends survey report, which makes it the longest-running survey of corporate counsel on litigation issues and trends!  And, as usual, there were some interesting results.

The seventeenth annual litigation trends survey had responses from more than 250 general counsel and inhouse litigation leaders, of which 85% were either General Counsel (27%), Head of Litigation (21%) or Associate/Deputy/Assistant GC (37%).  The report includes sections on environmental, social and governance (ESG) trends, cybersecurity and data protection trends, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) trends, regulatory investigations trends, class action trends, mitigating disputes and resourcing disputes, among other things. Here are a few findings of note:

• Concern over ESG issues increased, with 37% of respondents saying they were more concerned compared to 21% in the last survey.
• Two-thirds (66%) of respondents said they felt more exposed to disputes related to cybersecurity and data privacy– an increase from 44% in the previous survey.
• While only 3% of respondents identified cybersecurity and data protection disputes as among the most common, four times that number listed them as the single most concerning.
• Respondents reported that 73% of their litigation spend was allocated to outside counsel in 2021, compared to 66% in 2020, due to the increase in lawsuits.
• DEI and discrimination were identified as the largest non-legal factor influencing new dispute trends at 17%.
• Consumer and retail respondents reported the highest volume of class actions, with 36% citing them as their most frequent dispute type.
• Employment/labor litigation was the top type of litigation pending against respondent companies in the last 12 months with 49%, replacing contracts/commercial litigation (last year’s top choice) which had 46% this year.

If you want to catch additional highlights from the seventeenth annual litigation trends survey report, Rob Robinson’s Complex Discovery blog has reported several other highlights here.  However, if you want to read the entire 24 page report (which I recommend), it’s available here.

So, what do you think?  Did you miss the report like I did? Not anymore! Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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