FTI Consulting, Inc., the global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations protect and enhance their enterprise value, today announced the results of its mid-year study of corporate e-discovery trends. Conducted by its FTI Technology segment, this mid-year installment of Advice from Counsel features insights from 25 experienced e-discovery managers in the Fortune 1000, and highlights their advice on how counsel can make e-discovery more efficient and cost-effective in today's climate. The report outlines 13 specific cost-saving tips from these e-discovery managers across the collection, processing, early case assessment, review and production phases of e-discovery, including how to use analytics to find important case data to drive the e-discovery process rather than waiting until the review process completes to understand the most important case information.   

"For six years, the Advice from Counsel studies have provided a critical resource for corporations seeking to exchange best practices and improve their e-discovery program," said Mike Kinnaman, Senior Managing Director in the Technology segment at FTI Consulting and co-author of the Advice from Counsel study. "The most recent Advice from Counsel study underscores the increasingly important role analytics will play in e-discovery's future."  

Across every phase of e-discovery, the results indicate a paradigm shift is underway due to an increased use of analytics. Key findings from the latest Advice from Counsel study support this conclusion and include:

• About half of the respondents (48 percent) process data in-house, while the other half outsource processing or rely on a hybrid of in-house and outsourced services. The number one tip for reducing processing costs is to use analytics to reduce the data set before processing. 
• The top complaints about the early case assessment ("ECA") phase is that often matters are so large and fast-moving that teams do not have time to conduct ECA and the software may not scale to handle the dataset. 
• Sixty-eight percent of corporations outsource legal review, 28 percent rely on a hybrid of in-house and outsourced services and four percent conduct review completely in-house. The top recommendation for reducing legal review costs is to use analytics and predictive coding so that attorneys review a small subset of the data.  

"The respondents for this study provided some of the most direct and practical insight we've had to date for Advice from Counsel," said Ari Kaplan, legal consultant and Principal of Ari Kaplan Advisors and co-author of the Advice from Counsel study. "All of the advice was focused on proactive steps and improvements that could be reasonably implemented in any corporate legal department to enhance efficiency and reduce costs. We're looking forward to the next round of studies that may indicate how some of these insights are beginning to take shape in practice."