2010 Preview – A Virtual Roundtable Discussion

We thought about writing our own list of 2010 predictions but the only thing we could think of was how important training & educational opportunities will be to our industry in 2010. We’ll discuss the value of training in another post. Today, we’re focused on the following collection of blogs and articles that offer a preview and reflection of 2010 & 2009. What were the topics, ideas, concepts, technologies that you found most useful in 2009? What do you think will be important in 2010? Take a look at the following sites and let’s have a virtual class discussion!

• The Gartner Report continues to point to an expanding e-discovery market that is simultaneously contracting. That’s because the part of the market that is contracting is that which relies on the “legacy” technology while the expanding areas include geography, technology and value expectations management.
• Clearwell offers a “Top 10” list of predictions that includes addressing the skills gap for project management. Clearwell’s predictions are also available here as a slide show – suggested use: schedule a lunch & learn for your paralegals/ attorneys where you discuss industry trends. Start with this slideshow but create your own slides with key points from a few of these blogs & articles listed here.
• Trends for contract attorneys that may also prove to be trends for litigation support professionals as well from The Posse List. We’re paying special attention to the project management trend. What are our options for achieving quality in e-discovery?.
• Many bloggers see early case assessment, searching technology and project management in their crystal balls. We like Charles Skamser’s use of the word “legacy” to describe how we used to do things versus how things are going to be done in the immediate future. That is a huge point as we transition to a new decade that we should be aware of… there will still be firms who have invested heavily in what is now “legacy” technology who will have to determine whether or not the newer technology and methodologies for case management are “must haves.”
• Chris Dale from the UK offers his perspective on what’s coming in 2010 here. It’s interesting that he sees a narrowing of the idea of what is “relevant” in litigation towards attorneys cooperating on what “is really necessary for the facts to be found and justice to be done.”
• Pivotal Discovery posted their predictions via guest blogger, Doug Kaminski from Clearwell Systems. Again, project management, searching and cooperation are viewed with increasing importance in 2010. He additionally highlights the pricing model changes that are forthcoming to our industry. This is the value / ROI question that many corporate legal departments have when it comes to paying for e-discovery.  He also mentions “insourcing” which is something that we took note of here at LitWorks in 2009. Many of our students are doing a considerable volume of ESI processing themselves within the law firm environment with calculated thresholds to determine when to involve an outside vendor. This is a topic that is definitely open for lots of discussion. Feel free to leave your thoughts on this or any of the other predictions for 2010 below as a comment.
• Ari Kaplan’s summary of the last major e-discovery conference of 2009 not only reviews the highlights of this past year but gives us previews of what’s coming next. As others have suggested and as we teach here at LitWorks, it’s not about the technology… it’s about the process. Case teams will have to take control of their workflow and understand how the technology can be used to achieve their litigation strategy.
• Your firm’s IT director may be thinking along these lines.
• Some companies may be upgrading to the latest version of Microsoft Exchange. If so, then this article will help you with managing expectations for collection.
• Another list of 2010 predictions of interest to your IT director or even your firm’s clients can be found here.
• If reading all of the blogs collected here is not for you, then check out this podcast.

As more bloggers post their predictions for 2010, we’ll add them to the list. If you come across any, please post to our comments area below or join the discussion… what do you think the bloggers have missed? What do you see as the Top 5 topics that will important to your firm, corporation or government agency?