Survey: Law Firms Are at an E-Discovery “Watershed”

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26 July 2014 – Earlier this week (click here) we noted a piece in The Washington Post about Winston & Strawn:

“Winston wants to compete head to head with e-discovery vendors such as FTI and Kroll. This year, the firm started pushing a new service in which Winston’s e-discovery team will handle e-discovery for cases even if other law firms — often their competitors in the legal market — are handling the actual litigation of the case”.

So far, it has been paying off but as Winston attorney John Rosenthal … who leads the practice … noted “from a dollar standpoint, it’s not that significant. But as a differentiator to our clients, it’s huge.”

Yesterday Sean Doherty of Law Technology News posted an article about law firms reaching a “watershed moment” in servicing e-discovery tasks for corporate clients, reporting on a survey released on July 22, sponsored by RVM Enterprises Inc. and conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors. Quoting from the Doherty piece:

“Ari Kaplan, reporting on the survey, said that 30 law firm attorneys, who are primarily outside e-discovery counsel to corporate legal departments, were interviewed. All the attorneys practice in Am Law 200 firms—Twenty-two of the participants are partners and 8 are senior e-discovery attorneys. All the attorneys surveyed recommend e-discovery software and vendors to their corporate clients. The survey found, among other things, that law firms are finding innovative ways to service corporate clients who are demanding more transparency and cost reductions from outside counsel; and who are taking on more e-discovery roles in house”.

According to the survey, among the practices firms are using to change their e-discovery practices to strengthen their billing proposition:

• Replacing deficient data processing vendors.
• Migrating to new software.
• Identifying and partnering with expert outside partners.
• Establishing a uniform approach to e-discovery tasks.

For the full Doherty post which has a link to the survey click here.