Consulting company FTI Technology recently released a survey on the best ways to streamline and reduce the cost of e-discovery. FTI interviewed 31 in-house counsel with e-discovery responsibilities, most of whom work at Fortune 1000 companies, and asked them for advice. Here are some of the survey’s key findings on e-discovery trends in 2011:
- 94% of respondents found the cost of e-discovery “frustrating”
- 87% of respondents used an early case assessment to try to resolve matters earlier
- 81% of respondents brought software in house, which helps to cut costs on law firm or service provider fees
- 52% of respondents brought staff in house to help reduce fees spent on law firms or service providers
- 32% of respondents used clustering or visualization tools to speed review along (down from 34% in 2010)
- 71% of respondents used contract attorneys for legal review (down from 77% in 2010)
- 61% of respondents were able to quantify how much money they spent on e-discovery. Many companies are still unaware of their spending habits.
- 42% of respondents have a tool to collect and preserve data from the cloud or from social media
Get a full copy of FTI’s report here.
