Litigation Support

Yes, I'm late. The report was issued in October and it is now December. But as John Lennon famously noted, "life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." I am pleased to say that we have given our last presentation for 2009 - this means I have a couple of weeks to catch up on my reading and one of the first things I wanted to read was Fulbright & Jaworski's 6th Annual Litigation Trends Survey Report.

Here is a summary of the key points regarding e-discovery:

• 77% of the more than 400 corporate respondents thought that the use of full pre-trial disclosure should be reconsidered to make the process more affordable and efficient in the U.S. (that was kind of a no-brainer)
• 26% reported that they were now using law firms with specialized e-discovery practices (this should be a wake up call for law firms that don't have such practices)
• 24% are outsourcing some e-discovery functions through preferred provider relationships or master service agreements (curiously, no one has ever asked us to do either, in spite of the fact that we deal with many large firms)
• 48% are in-sourcing some e-discovery activities (and this is both wise and dangerous, which will provide fodder for another blog post)
• 42% are doing some blocking of social networking sites
• 4% of respondents have been required to produce social networking ESI as part of e-discovery (note: that percentage is 18% in the U.K. and I predict the U.S. percentage will soar)
• 9% are using "off-shore" document reviewers (this is up from 4% the previous year - I am still seeing a lot of reluctance to go off-shore)

There you have it - a concise snapshot of the e-discovery portion of the report with my comments. Which of the 500 plus items stacked on my floor should I read next? 

E-mail: snelson@senseient.com Phone: 703-359-0700

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