Ride the Lightning

FULBRIGHT & JAWORSKI 2008 LITIGATION TRENDS SURVEY

October 14, 2008

This is always one of my favorite surveys. Lots of wheat, little chaff. And this year, it gave me good news. Since I make my living from the litigation business (and new case filings were down this year) and since I am known within the family as “The Bank of Mama,” I was pleased to note that litigation is predicted to be on the rise this year, in part due to the shrinking economy. When companies fail, there is always a legal bloodbath around the corner.

With respect to electronic evidence (a small part of the survey), 12% of the companies responding said they had been before a court or other litigation tribunal ill-equipped to deal with complex electronic data discovery. For financial services and technology firms, which have mounds of e-files and other electronically stored data, 19% and 18%, respectively, reported facing courts and tribunals not up to the challenge.

Everyone dealing with EDD review has discussed the outsourcing of that review to foreign shores. So far, a handful of U.S. companies – 2% – are availing themselves of such services. However, for billion-dollar firms with much greater volumes of cases the number was a more notable 8%. Technology firms were the most comfortable with the practice, with 12% willing to send their document review offshore, followed by financial services firms at 11%.

Nice job on the survey guys – it is always instructive. The Bank of Mama likes your news.

Thanks to pal Toby Brown for the heads-up.

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