The General Counsel Report Identifies Priorities and Biggest Drivers of Cost Increases for Legal Departments
Author: FTI Consulting, Inc.
"…100% of respondents confirming their department has experienced some degree of increased risk and demand in the past year. Moreover, 85% of respondents said they expect that continual rate of increase to accelerate in the year ahead."
" Additionally, 88% of general counsel interviewed said they are concerned about the risks surrounding emerging data sources such as collaboration applications, linked content and cloud productivity platforms. Of those, 59% said they are “very” or “extremely” concerned (compared to 30% who said “very” or “extremely” in the previous year’s report). Nearly two-thirds (65%) said they are minimally prepared or not prepared at all to handle issues related to emerging data sources. One commented, 'I am scared $h!+less that if we are audited, we will be found non-compliant because of how employees or patients transmit data.'" BR>
"The percentage of general counsel who consider regulatory compliance to be their number one risk increased by 11 percentage points from the prior year’s report." (41%)<BR
"More than one-third said internal investigations are the top trigger for all their disputes and investigations activity and 25% cited whistleblowers as a leading factor."
Annual survey and interview cycles take on a life of their own. The year over year insights into the perspectives and concerns of corporate GC help us understand where the market and our own careers are headed. My thanks to Ari Kaplan for all the hard work and clean data.
It helps to put 2024-2025 in perspective. The 2020 Pandemic Pause was an unprecedented halt in legal matters. It allowed GCs to reflect on the cost and risk of traditional outsourced discovery. Microsoft reps upsold M365 E5 licenses to CIO’s promising massive savings from remote work, collaboration (Teams), Compliance (Purview) and early analytics (AI). The last administration generally ramped up regulatory enforcement to catch up with the EU. The last half decade has delivered massive technological advancements that legal/compliance practitioners are still chasing.
All of these factors put enormous pressure on GCs to adapt quickly to control risks and costs. Hence the trends of in-sourcing eDiscovery platforms, managed eDiscovery services, legal ops and upstream analytics/AI for investigations/ECA before formal discovery. We now have the tools for corporations to ‘own’ their eDiscovery as long as they can develop the right resources and workflows. For too long corporate counsel threw eDiscovery over the ‘fence’ to retained counsel and providers. This survey highlights the realization that discovery starts at ESI creation rather than receipt of a request for production.