Technology Surveys

2007 ILTA Technology Purchasing Survey:  In 2007, ILTA in cooperation with Envision Agency, conducted its annual IT purchasing survey of ILTA member firms with 100+ attorneys. What’s new?:  Budgets are way up, but only among law firms with under 200 attorneys; small firms (under 200 attorneys) are implementing and planning major software purchases, larger firms are focused on infrastructure, hardware upgrades, and innovative mobility solutions; Law Technology News is the most popular legal technology publications and blogs such as Law.com, TechnoLawyer and DennisKennedy.com are finally making a noticeable impression.

ILTA’s 2007 Technology Survey: There were 499 respondents representing firms with attorney counts ranging from 3 to 4,700. Compared to larger firms, smaller firms are:

• More likely to buy instead of lease new technology.
• Less likely to bill clients for faxes, scanning or copies printed by laser printers.
• More likely to have users working with two different word processing programs.

Compared to smaller firms, larger firms are:

• Much more likely to have attorneys using laptops full-time.
• More likely to have scanner work flow software (e.g., eCopy, AccuRoute).
• More likely to provide financial support of PDAs and have a much higher adoption of PDA usage.
• More likely to have or be working on a matter-centric interface of their systems.
• More likely to employ a service level agreement to define expected levels of customer service for the firm.

Industry Trends & Projections (Source: 2007 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey)

Electronic Data Discovery Trends:  Fifth annual Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey: According to George Socha and Tom Gelbmann, co-producers of the annual Socha-Gelbmann survey, the 2007 report examines the demands for and consumption of commercial electronic discovery services and software. The survey informs consumers of electronic discovery software and services and provides an independent view and ranking of the best in class providers.

For a fifth time, the survey includes EDD market size information (covering 2006 calendar year), including:

• 2006 commercial EDD revenues were about $1,952 million, up 51 percent from 2005;
• The top 30 providers collected about $1.08 billion;
• An additional 550-plus vendors accounted for another $592 million;
• "Do-it-yourself" firms (law firms and companies doing EDD work they otherwise would have sent to a provider) represented $130 million.

Judging from consumer and provider expectations, the authors anticipate that the market will grow at approximately 33 percent from 2006 to 2007; 28 percent from 2007 to 2008; and 23 percent from 2008 to 2009. If these growth estimates are realized, the EDD market will exceed $4 billion by 2009.