According to Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, “Europe needs to join forces to lead on the current and upcoming wave of industrial and public data. This declaration is promising and shows the depth of the change that we witness. There is a common understanding that it is vital that any data can be stored and processed in Europe, according to European rules and standards. That will be a key pillar of our digital sovereignty for this Digital Decade and will propel Europe’s recovery, ensure long-term competitiveness and help us reach climate sustainability.”
A Season of Change? Eighteen Observations on eDiscovery Business Confidence in the Fall of 2020
In the fall of 2020, 77.2% of eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey respondents felt the current business conditions are good or normal. This combined confidence level represents a 1.1% increase in these same feelings when compared to the summer of 2020 where 76.0% felt the conditions were good or normal. Additionally, exactly 38.6% of survey respondents characterized the current business climate as good. This represents a decrease from 40.0% of respondents who viewed the business climate as good in the summer of 2020. This decrease from the summer of 2020 may represent a cautious concern in the current general business climate for eDiscovery.
Time for More Digital Republics? Considering Estonia
Since 2005, Estonians have been able to vote online, from anywhere in the world. Estonians log on with their digital ID card and vote as many times as they want during the pre-voting period, with each vote canceling the last. This unique technological solution has safeguarded Estonian voters against fraud, use of force, and other manipulations of remote voting that many American voters are apprehensive about in the 2020 US election.
DISCO Raises $60 Million
According to the media release, DISCO will use this investment to aggressively expand its go-to-market team, doubling sales capacity in North America over the next 12-15 months, expanding its dedicated enterprise sales team, and growing its presence in the EMEA and APAC regions. The company highlighted that it will also expand its strategic channel program, working with service providers who resell DISCO, including a growing number of the largest global service providers. DISCO will continue to invest in its cloud technology platform, software products like DISCO Ediscovery and DISCO Case Builder, and productized legal services like its fast-growing AI-powered DISCO Managed Review offering.
The Continuing Case of Budgetary Constraints in the Business of eDiscovery
In the fall of 2020, 49.4% of respondents viewed budgetary constraints as potentially having the greatest business impact on their business in the next six months. This percentage is the highest of all concerns represented in the survey and also is the third-highest rating for any business performance concern since the inception of the survey. This is also the twelfth time in twenty surveys that the issue of budgetary constraints has been the top concern or tied for the top concern by survey respondents.
Post COVID-19 Hype? New Gartner Hype Cycle for Legal and Compliance Technologies
According to Zack Hutto, director in the Gartner Legal and Compliance practice, “Just as enterprise resource planning (ERP) overhauled finance, there is promise for a foundational system of record to improve in-house legal operations and workflows. Legal leaders should take a lesson from ERP’s evolution: ‘monolithic’ IT systems tend to lack flexibility and can quickly become an anchor not a sail.”
A Tempo of (Anti) Trust? Hart-Scott-Rodino Act Filings in 2020
Given the chilling effect of COVID on the business of eDiscovery in 2020, many individuals and organizations are interested in the impact of current pandemeconomic conditions on essential audit, investigation, and litigation drivers for legal discovery. One of those drivers is the need for eDiscovery support in FTC and DOJ Second Request investigations. As Second Requests are driven from HSR Act mandated merger transaction reviews, the following HSR Act filing information and comparisons may be helpful for understanding current trends and potential trajectories driving the need for Second Requests.
Outstanding Accounts? eDiscovery Operational Metrics in the Fall of 2020
In the fall of 2020, eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey more than 70 participants chose to answer at least one of the optional business operational metric survey questions in the quarterly survey. 21.9% of survey respondents reported Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) as increasing in the fall of 2020. This is an incremental increase from the 20.9% reporting DSO as increasing in the summer of 2020 and is the highest percentage of respondents reporting DSO as increasing since the introduction of business operational metric questions to the eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey in the winter of 2019.
Hidden Trends? Captivating Research on Captive ALSPs
According to the just-released report from Baretz+Brunelle, a new crop of competitors has started playing on law firms’ turf. These competitors use technology, alternative staffing models, and a focus on process to accomplish tasks more efficiently than law firms. They are known as “alternative legal services providers,” and they are racking up wins. Recent numbers show that revenue for ALSPs grew from $8.4 billion in 2015 to $10.7 billion in 2017, and that 71% of corporate legal departments now use so-called ALSPs.
Holding the Rudder? Fall 2020 eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey Results
This is the twentieth quarterly eDiscovery Business Confidence Survey conducted by ComplexDiscovery. It is also the third time the survey has been conducted during the current pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to alter life as we know it. It also continues to alter the business landscape of everyone in the eDiscovery ecosystem. 2,272 individual responses have been received from legal, business, and technology professionals across the eDiscovery ecosystem since the inception of the survey. 83 respondents shared their opinions as part of the most recent survey.