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New Report Shows Legal Teams are Growing, But Not Fully Equipped to Handle Privacy Regulations

PORTLAND, Ore., October 9, 2019 – Exterro® Inc., the preferred provider of software specifically designed for in-house legal, privacy and IT teams at Global 2000 and AmLaw 200 organizations, along with the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) and In The House today announced the release of the 2019 In-House Legal Benchmarking Report based on a recent survey of  attorneys, legal directors, general counsel, and paralegals.

Key findings of the 2019 In-House Legal Benchmarking Report include:

  • An alarmingly low rate of concern for new privacy regulations. 68% of respondents are either not concerned or only somewhat concerned about new and pending privacy regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
  • Lack of preparedness for responding to privacy regulations: only about 15% of organizations have a defined process prepared to respond to pending privacy regulations. 58% of respondents don’t have a data map or inventory for tracking personal data and 56% don’t know how the organization’s data map/inventory is managed.
  • In-house legal departments are consolidating outsourced legal activities into a preferred network of law firm providers. In this year’s report, 64% of respondents use 10 law firms or fewer, compared to only 47% last year.
  • The prevalence of dedicated e-discovery personnel is growing in corporate legal departments and in-house teams are focused on being more e-discovery and technically savvy.
    • 50% of in-house legal departments have an e-discovery team (formal or informal).
  • 60% in-house legal teams are getting dedicated IT services inside legal or a mix of inside and outside of legal to support e-discovery processes, up 11% from 2018.
  • 56% of in-house legal teams all or most of the time conduct at least a first pass review before subsequently sending document for law firm review.

“This year’s in-house legal benchmarking report is full of both good and bad news. It’s good to see that in-house legal teams are becoming more mature in their management of e-discovery processes, but it is alarming to see how unprepared so many legal teams are for the CCPA and other looming privacy regulations. Legal teams must take notice of how these regulations will impact their companies and business processes,” said Bill Piwonka, CMO at Exterro.

“ACEDS is proud to continue to support the 4th Annual In-House Benchmarking Report with Exterro and In the House. Less than 20% of respondents describe their e-discovery maturity as “ad hoc” even with the increasing numbers of smaller teams. With high levels of satisfaction for both in house teams and outsourced services, law firms and service providers will need to differentiate to dislodge incumbents,” said Mary Mack, Executive Director at ACEDS.

“The results of this year’s in-house legal benchmarking report illustrate the increased empowerment of in-house counsel over prior years, yet it also reveals that much work remains to be done, said Chris Colvin, Founder & CEO at In The House.

The 2019 In-House Legal Benchmarking Report is based on a survey of 180 respondents of in-house legal professionals conducted in the summer of 2019. The full report can be downloaded here.