Blogs

At LegalTech 2012 in New York, many vendors showcased eDiscovery products for use in-house and in the cloud to adequately respond to eDiscovery. It seems most products still emphasize how to react   when being sued.

But there was a new trend at the show this year. For the first time, visitors sought proactive information management, enterprise information archiving, legacy information clean-up, defensible disposal, data monitoring for internal investigations such as non-compliance, early fraud detection and other intelligent governance tools. The focus is shifting away from solely limiting risks and costs on specific matters, but looking to use the software for better knowledge management and to assist an organization to implement its strategic goals.

For most vendors, the marketing focus has remained squarely on  reactive eDiscovery solutions for the simple reason that these generated most revenue and closed many times faster than traditional Governance, Archival and other Information Management solutions.

But, we now see that organizations that have bought and deployed reactive eDiscovery solutions are now looking to leverage the same technology, people and skills for more proactive programs! This is especially true when the litigation work load is low, which is often the case, as litigation does not occur on a predictable timeline. There is really no excuse anymore not to use the tools and skills that one already has to limit risks and cost of risky custodians, locations and projects, let alone the benefits of less storage, less duplicates, less backup and better knowledge management.

So, finally, the only and ultimate solution to reduce eDiscovery risks and cost is being implemented: proactive eDiscovery, Governance and Information Archiving programs. All thanks to reactive eDiscovery!