WINTER 2019 TODAY’S GENER AL COUNSEL
E-Discovery
Make the Most of Your Relationship with Outside Counsel By Nishad Shevde to this understanding. We’ll wrap up with some thoughts on what these findings mean for in-house legal teams.
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arlier this year, we conducted a survey of professionals at law firms serving corporate clients. The survey covered a wide range of topics, including client relationship management; project management; and e-discovery services, staffing and technology. Looking at the data, there were many granular insights worth sharing. To wit: • Only 4 percent of clients expect to pay more for services year over year, presumably meaning the legal services sector should be exempt from inflation. • More than half of law firms (53 percent) rely on attorneys to serve as project managers, meaning legal project management (LPM) still has plenty of room to grow. • Law firm e-discovery services have grown significantly over the last five years, with 85 percent of respondents seeing “substantial” or “slight” growth in demand from clients.
However, the risk with survey reports such as this one is that readers don’t see the forest for the trees. Taken as a whole, the message of the survey results is quite compelling: Clients should ask for and expect to receive better and more collaborative e-discovery counseling from law firms. Three key trends in the data contributed to this interpretation. Let’s look at each of these points in turn, attempting to answer why we came to these conclusions and which data points contribute SURVEY QUESTION
Which services are your clients asking more of?
Reduced rates/alt. billing arrangements
77%
Proactive cost/risk mitigation strategies
50%
Increased collaboration with in-house teams
27%
Improved project transparency
41%
Other
1. Clients want customized strategies for solving e-discovery challenges from their law firms. • Seventy-seven percent of clients are asking for reduced rates or alternative billing arrangements. The pressures unleashed by the Great Recession haven’t disappeared in the legal industry; they are the new normal. ` • Fifty percent of clients want proactive cost and risk mitigation strategies. Vague promises of efficiency aren’t enough for corporate clients; law firms have to have a plan for how to save time and money. • Client demands for improved processes and technology are driving change at law firms. Sixty-two percent of respondents cited clients’ requests as the motivator for change, while fewer firms cited market pressure (51 percent) or management initiatives (46 percent) as playing a role. • While technology-assisted review is relatively common (61 percent) at law firms, artificial intelligence is relatively rare, with 60 percent of law firms using it “rarely” or “never.”
5%
