Been meaning to get to this! Here are some highlights from the ninth annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Report from Ari Kaplan Advisors!

Last month, Ari Kaplan Advisors, a leading legal industry advisory company, released its ninth 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 23 eDiscovery vendors* and a variety of popular trends. The report highlights the focus on technology-driven efficiency, innovative talent deployment strategies, the ever-changing data management challenges, and the ways that legal teams are addressing the swift emergence of artificial intelligence.

For the ninth annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Report, Ari personally interviewed 30 individuals responsible for e-discovery decision-making, including eight in-house lawyers, eight in-house legal professionals, eight law firm partners, and six law firm litigation support leaders. 97% of the participants develop and implement e-discovery processes, 97% select e-discovery tools and vendors, 93% implement e-discovery technology, 87% manage e-discovery software and service providers, and 80% manage the e-discovery budget. So, needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), these people have personal experiences with various eDiscovery vendors and trends.

The report’s key findings include:

• 97% confirm that corporate legal teams are bringing more of their e-discovery in-house.
• 90% expect remote document review to remain permanent.
• 87% are now using some form of artificial intelligence, e.g., predictive coding, in their document review processes.
• 83% note that the amount of data in a typical e-discovery matter has increased over the past year.
• 80% use analytics across a majority of their e-discovery matters.
• 73% have seen an increase in the workload for an e-discovery professional over the past year.
• 67% are using multiple cloud-based e-discovery platforms.
• 63% expect the number of their litigation matters to increase this year.
• 47% advise that the total cost of a typical e-discovery matter has increased over the past year.
• 43% see their e-discovery spending remaining the same in 2023.

Together with tracking 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. So, it’s not just one report – it’s several reports, most of which are tailored to the subscribing vendors. The complete list of companies studied includes: Casepoint, Cimplifi, Consilio, Deloitte, Disco, Epiq, Ernst & Young, Everlaw, Exterro, FTI, Hanzo, Integreon, KLDiscovery, Lighthouse, Logikcull, Nuix, Onna, Pagefreezer, QuisLex, Relativity, Reveal, Ricoh USA and Smarsh.

Here’s a link to the announcement for the ninth annual eDiscovery Unfiltered Report. Wednesday, I’ll have more on the report highlighting my interview with Ari about the report, including how it got started and his guidelines for producing it every year!

So, what do you think? Are you surprised by any of the key findings above from the ninth 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.