Global News
The cloud is the future for legal professionals, according to a new report published today by Everlaw, the cloud-based ediscovery and litigation platform, in partnership with Above the Law. The report reveals that law firms and in-house corporate legal teams are adopting cloud-based ediscovery technology at rapid rates.
Everlaw’s research shows that currently 56% of ediscovery deployments are on-premises, either managed in-house or with a service provider. With the ediscovery market expected to grow to almost $13B by 2025, the shift to the cloud represents a huge opportunity.
Members of the AmLaw100 were the most likely (66%) to report plans to move to the cloud within the next year, with only 20% of in-house corporate professionals predicting they’d transition within the next six to 12 months. However, despite their own plans for cloud adoption, 11% of the AmLaw100 believe that cloud-based ediscovery will never become the norm.
Legal professionals ranked ease of use as the most advantageous aspect of a cloud-based system (43%), followed by speed and efficiency (16%) and the ability to collaborate across several different geological locations (11%). And legal professionals are already seeing the ROI. Of those who have adopted new cloud technologies since the start of the pandemic, 48% stated that the implementation went well, 34% reported improved efficiency as a result of the technology and 29% have delivered better client services.
Respondents cited data security and privacy challenges as the main roadblocks to cloud adoption as IT teams work to keep pace with protecting large data sets. Some ediscovery providers have prioritized the protection of private data in order to ease these concerns: Everlaw was the first cloud-native ediscovery solution to achieve FedRAMP Security Authorization.
Another challenge that legal professionals identified was integrating cloud-based applications with existing systems. While members of the AmLaw100 and small- to midsize firms reported successful technology adoption during the pandemic, in-house corporate legal teams reported challenges with implementing the technology. Of those surveyed that are planning a cloud migration approximately one-third plan to do so with their own in-house teams, one-third with a service provider and one-third with a cloud based ediscovery vendor.
“Legal teams are on a mission to expose the truth and bring justice to light, and the most efficient and secure way to accomplish that is through the cloud,” said Everlaw CEO AJ Shankar. “The legal industry is experiencing a period of rapid transformation, and with this comes growing pains. But the teams that implement cloud-based technology today will see positive gains down the road, from increased efficiency, productivity and security to better client services.”
In partnership with Above the Law, Everlaw surveyed 222 legal professionals from the AmLaw100, small- to midsize firms and in-house professionals, in H1 2021.
Request a copy of the report here.
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