Litigation Trends Survey Points to New Norm

October 25, 2010

The 7th Annual Litigation Trends Survey Report, recently released by Fulbright and Jaworski leaves no doubt: the economy is changing the way corporations approach litigation. Of the 403 respondents to the survey (a statistically significant number), nearly half blame the drab economy of recent years for anticipated increases in litigation. Along with that comes the belief harbored by 50% of the U.S. respondents that the legal industry will permanently change because of the economy. Legal spend is under attack, over half of U.S. respondents expecting alternative fee arrangements to remain prevalent, and a quarter believing stringent cost control is a permanent trend. At the same time, electronic discovery is more important than ever, with over 40% of companies bringing in $1 billion or more in revenue planning to increase spending on e-discovery in the next year.

This particular combination, an atmosphere of increased litigation and increased e-discovery spend, but decreased legal budgets and general acceptance that change is gonna come, is the perfect environment for legal process outsourcing. It’s not a surprise that litigation services outsourcing is currently exploding. So no wonder ValueNotes DatabasePrivate Limited expects LPO to grow from what it currently estimates is a $440 million industry to a $1.1 billion industry by 2014. The decks are stacked in LPO’s favor, and litigation is just the beginning.

Filed under: Legal Process Outsourcing