Dive Brief:
- Nearly 50% of surveyed legal professionals said cloud-based ediscovery has become the standard in the industry, a sharp increase from a year ago, according to a report released Wednesday by ediscovery company Everlaw.
- Overall, 96% of the nearly 200 respondents in the U.S. said they viewed the shift to the cloud as inevitable by 2024.
- Additionally, more than half the respondents said they are managing an in-house ediscovery solution, a figure encompassing both cloud-based and on-premises platforms.
Dive Insight:
The growing embrace of cloud-based ediscovery has come amid the ongoing support for remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Everlaw conducted a survey of legal professionals in 2021, just 29% said cloud-based ediscovery was the standard.
The percentage of professionals believing cloud-based ediscovery is the norm rose to 48% this year, a 66% jump, according to the 2022 Ediscovery Innovation Report: Leaders and Laggards.
More than half of respondents using cloud-based platforms in-house said cost was the main advantage of moving to the cloud. Scalability and speed were also factors frequently cited by those users as key benefits of moving to the cloud.
“Cloud is not just the future of ediscovery, it is increasingly the norm,” said Chuck Kellner, an Everlaw strategic discovery advisor. “It's propelled by the pandemic and proven out by the success of early adopters."
The survey Everlaw conducted in partnership with the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) featured 195 legal professionals across corporate legal departments, law firms, government agencies and legal service providers.
The survey found 43% of respondents deploy a completely cloud-based solution, 38% deploy an on-premises solution, 14% utilize a hybrid approach and 5% selected “other”.
The report also highlights that the percentage of respondents utilizing cloud-based platforms in-house rose from 10% a year ago to 24% this year.
Meanwhile, roughly one-third of respondents said they utilize an on-premises solution in an in-house fashion, the Everlaw report found.
Officials from another cloud-based ediscovery platform, Casepoint, recently told Legal Dive they have also seen an increase in legal departments bringing ediscovery in-house.
In related news, cloud-based Casepoint announced Wednesday that Sacramento-based law firm Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard has selected the company’s platform to manage its ediscovery needs.
“Casepoint’s ediscovery solution enables our firm to dramatically reduce the cost of litigation by streamlining complex document review via the cloud,” said Rick Fowler, Kronick’s chief operating officer.
