Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Greg Buckles. Published: 2014-02-01 19:00:00Format, images and links may no longer function correctly.
Are you going to Legal Tech in frozen New York next week? Over 50% of my admittedly small survey are not attending this year. Quite a few of my long term friends will not be there this year and that has me wondering about the legal technology market in general. I have always viewed LTNY attendance, sponsorship and exhibitor counts as prime indicators of the eDiscovery marketing budget. LTNY 2013 certainly promised a rebound from the recession doldrums that afflicted every market. 2013 took off with a bang and seems to have ended in cautious confusion among many of the providers we briefed through the last quarter. So why are people going to LTNY this year? Education and panels led in overall importance rankings with social networking right behind. Interesting enough, 25% of survey respondents are paying their own way and no one reported complementary provider passes (which may be a reflection on the changing exhibitor packages). Of eDiscovery topics, Information Governance – upstream eDiscovery ranked significantly higher than Predictive Coding – analytics or any other topic.
Beyond my small survey, I have been tracking the number of sponsors and exhibitors shown on the LTNY site going back to 2008 (which may not reflect final actual counts). As you can see, 2014 seems to show a bit of a slump compared to last year’s optimistic rebound. All of these numbers should be viewed cautiously, as many providers told us that they were forgoing exhibitor booths to run demo suites or micro events in adjacent hotels. The consumer attendance is projected at 13,000, not that much more than the 11,000 projected for the pre-recession peak in 2007.
Legal Tech is the premier eDiscovery consumer conference and should not be missed by serious practitioners who can wrangle the educational budget from their employers. Exhibit hall passes were free for early registrants and so are most of the sponsored panels, so you can’t even blame the relatively high cost of a premium pass. Our eDiscovery market is definitely having growing pains as service and software providers struggle to adapt to changing consumer demands. It will be interesting to walk the floor, talk with new/old acquaintances and assess the ‘mood’ of the market gathered in one place. I will be spending much of Wednesday socializing at Bridges off the lobby, so drop through and share your perspective on the show, the market and our evolving profession.
Greg Buckles can be reached at Greg@eDJGroupInc for offline comments or questions. His active research topics include mobile device discovery, the discovery impact of the cloud, Microsoft’s 2013 eDiscovery Center and multi-matter discovery. Recent consulting engagements include managing preservation during enterprise migrations, legacy tape eliminations, retention enablement and many more.
Find Greg at the following upcoming events:
- LTNY 2014, February 4-6, 2014, New York, NY