Pessimistic findings for legal departments that want to create their own e-discovery team

A late-breaking study of the electronic document discovery (EDD) market, by George Socha and Tom Gelbman, paints a grim picture about the ability of general counsel to develop and retain managers of EDD. “Hiring at corporations also has been difficult. Estimates are that by now maybe20 to 30 companies have been able to acquire or develop respectable in-house expertise, but many others are hard-pressed to find someone – anyone – competent, available and capable of taking the internal EDD helm.” This blog has mentioned several instances of internal teams for e-discovery (See my post of May 3, 2008: internal discovery teams with 8 references.).

The summary paragraph above comes from Law Tech. News (LTN), Vol. 16, Aug. 2009 at 28. The situation worsens: if you manage to find, nurture, and train someone on your staff to oversee electronic discovery, turnover is high. “Almost as quickly as those people are brought on board, others leave to join the provider ranks where they believe rewards will be greater and frustrations fewer.” “Provider” means vendors and consulting firms.

The report also mentions that the emphasis of internal EDD efforts is on “legal hold, litigation preparedness and compliance” (See my post of Aug. 27, 2008: litigation hold notices with 6 references.).