News Facts

CommVault has released the results of its eDiscovery Readiness Survey, which polled employees, including general counsels, associate general counsels and other legal titles, at 42 enterprises nationwide. The survey reinforces the growing trend among companies to assemble cross-functional eDiscovery teams to speed the deployment of standardized litigation response plans.

As more companies assemble these teams, CommVault has also launched a new eDiscovery and Compliance Resource Center in order to help meet customers' evolving eDiscovery needs and to provide answers to questions about eDiscovery and Compliance. The center provides legal teams with guidelines and tips for gaining greater control over eDiscovery business processes and, in combination with CommVault® Simpana® software, provides a one-stop solution for eDiscovery. Simpana software delivers comprehensive features that automate the classification of data, determine data relevancy, improve the time to complete early case assessments, optimize the document review process and enable the automation of legal holds which help customers to address risk and reduce costs associated with eDiscovery and litigation response.

Tweet This: @CommVault #eDiscovery Readiness Survey shows establishment of cross-functional eDiscovery teams in US enterprises http://bit.ly/iuT0u

Cross Functional eDiscovery Teams Ensure Companies Are Prepared For eDiscovery and Litigation

The CommVault survey also underscores a continuing move to prepare for the likelihood of a legal dispute, as 60 percent of the survey respondents have assembled cross-functional eDiscovery teams comprising stakeholders from legal, IT and other critical corporate departments. The creation of dedicated teams today suggests a significant shift in corporate thinking as to how to address eDiscovery readiness. In a 2007 CommVault IT survey, only 14 percent of IT departments polled had engaged their corporate legal departments on preparing to deal with disputes involving eDiscovery as a result of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) amendments. When taken together, these two surveys can suggest that individuals from both IT and legal departments are coming together to facilitate eDiscovery readiness planning.

CommVault's latest survey reveals a high utilization rate of systematic litigation plans, frequently associated with legal electronic health records (EHR), enterprise content and records management, as well as eDiscovery. Of those polled, 60 percent have formalized plans in place, which should help in preparing these respondents to address the management of electronically stored information (ESI) sources and document procedures for executing the full range of litigation response, including eDiscovery. CommVault's 2007 study showed that from an IT perspective, only six percent of respondents had implemented solutions to address the management of ESI.

Among other survey highlights: more than half of the respondents cited that at least one quarter of their legal disputes require eDiscovery and 25 percent of the respondents reported spending more than $500,000 a year on eDiscovery, including related information review and outsourcing costs.