The vendor-sponsored research revealed that IT and legal teams question each other’s commitment and grasp of e-discovery and regulatory compliance, according to a company statement.
Communication between the disparate departments is worsening, according to the release. Only 54 percent of respondents described the relationship as "good" or "very good" this year, an 18 percent decrease from 2009. And, the number of respondents reporting that IT and legal departments were working closer together dropped to 54 percent in 2010, from 67 percent last year.
In fact, companies’ priorities concerning e-discovery have shifted over the last year, according to Recommind, an e-discovery software provider. This year, 26 percent of respondents stated that their IT department placed e-discovery as a high or very high priority – a 14 percent drop from 2009.
In an interview with Jim Ericson, Anne Kershaw, attorney, senior consultant and founder of A.Kershaw, P.C. and co-founder of the nonprofit eDiscovery Institute, described the problem of discovery of electronic data in litigation as a problem of perception. "Yes, there is much more volume now because it’s easy to create mountains of data electronically. But added to that is the problem of lawyers not learning how the technology works and defaulting to old-fashioned discovery strategies that aggravate rather than resolve the problem."
Technology is not the barrier, said Kershaw. "Technology is our friend here, but the legal profession is slow to change and lawyers are risk averse. Lawyers are trained to follow precedent, stare decisis … But if we wake up and consider that technology can help by culling and sorting and sifting and searching, we can be very efficient."
Click here to read the rest of the interview, "Overheard: Lawyers, Discovery and Money."
Click here to read Information Management’s "Snapshot on E-Discovery."
Click here to read "The True Cost of E-Discovery," which discusses how to manage the hard dollars of software, storage, search, services and staff time.
To get a picture of what the coming e-discovery landscape might look like, click here and read "E-Discovery's Call to Action."
Adrienne Baker is associate editor at Information Management. She can be reached at adrienne.baker@sourcemedia.com.
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