Key Trends in eDiscovery for 2011

We’ve already blogged about the key trends and factors that helped define eDiscovery in 2010. Now, courtesy of CMSwire, let’s switch gears and look forward at what 2011 likely holds for eDiscovery:

• More Cloud Coverage. It’s expected that more companies will use cloud technology to manage and control its eDiscovery function. Increases in affordability, flexibility, scalability, security and controllability will all contribute to the move upwards.

• More Collaboration. eDiscovery tools and platforms will enable companies to collaborate – that is, share and develop data, instead of just move and store it.

• Expansion in to Litigation Management. eDiscovery will not only be seen as a legal function – but a business one. And to enable that, it will expand to Litigation Management by providing corporate decision-makers with metrics to help them determine the bottom-line costs and risk of various compliance strategies, standards and policies.

• Mobile lawyers. As lawyers use mobile technologies like iPads, technology vendors will develop software that enables them to do more business away from business. Such technologies will capture eDiscovery compliance needs, and integrate into a law firms’ overall eDiscovery system.

• New Data Sources. Companies will benefit from smarter technology that tells them where their data is located – so they can capture, control and coordinate it for efficient review (or efficient presentation to the courts as part of an discovery requirement). They’ll also get a clearer picture of their overall data map, so they can determine why it’s there, and how long it should be there before being deleted or archived.

• Better cooperation between Legal and IT. We’ve blogged about this before – because it’s such a big feature of the new eDiscovery landscape – and we’ll blog about it again: legal and IT will work closer together in 2011 as they discover that they need each other in order to solve the eDiscovery burden. Working in a silo and only acknowledging the other when a crisis emerges is no longer an option, if it ever really was.

It’s hard to say which trend will dominate 2011 – especially because eDiscovery is so dynamic. However, one thing can be said without hesitation: eDiscovery will be different in 2011 compared to 2010. Will your eDiscovery systems and policies be ready to meet these new challenges?