Want to find out what corporate legal professionals are thinking? Get the 2023 State of Corporate Legal Industry Report by IPRO!

In partnership with ACEDS, IPRO surveyed 126 corporate legal professionals to explore their perceptions on the key challenges their departments are likely to face in 2023, the expectations and priorities they set for this year, and how they see technology and outside counsel supporting their teams in achieving the set goals. The result is the 2023 State of Corporate Legal Industry Report released earlier today!

Corporate law departments have experienced a turbulent few years, defined by exponential growth in corporate data volumes and a volatile macroeconomic environment.

While experts’ predictions for what 2023 holds for the eDiscovery industry vary, they seem to converge on the idea that this year will challenge legal teams to offer more to their clients, with the same or even less resources than in 2022. With that in mind, here are five key takeaways from the 2023 State of Corporate Legal Industry Report:

• Corporate law professionals expect meeting deadlines to become more difficult in 2023: 49% of the survey respondents view ‘meeting deadlines with increasingly more complex data becoming more difficult’ as the trend they agree with the most.
• Budget and improving internal efficiency are deemed to impose the biggest challenges in 2023: More than half (53%) of surveyed corporate legal professionals named ‘budget’ to be the main factor that will impose the biggest challenges on their departments in 2023.
• The majority of respondents said increasing their use of technology would be their #1 priority for 2023: When asked about their key priorities for 2023, 74% of respondents said they aim to increase their use of technology in 2023. That’s good, because only 36% of survey respondents indicated that they have already adopted AI-powered technology within their or their team’s workflows.
• Surveyed corporate law departments are looking to outsource less with outside counsel in 2023: 41% of respondents are considering reducing the number of law firms they work with in 2023, while 25% of respondents already planned to do this in 2023.
• Overcollection of data is an increasing pain point for corporate law professionals: 27% of surveyed professionals agreed with the statement that their team over collects data regularly (with almost 10% of respondents strongly agreeing with it), while 46% are unsure or neutral towards the statement.

Those are just a few of the findings in the 2023 State of Corporate Legal Industry Report. You can get the full, comprehensive 29-page report here!

So, what do you think? Are you surprised by any of the key takeaways mentioned above? 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, 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.