The legal technology market is being defined by an expansion of cloud services and e-discovery, according to the 2018 E-discovery Unfiltered Survey of 31 professionals in legal businesses, conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors.

Almost all respondents said there was a growing acceptance and use of cloud services at their company or law firm, not just as the basis for software-as-a-service (SaaS) legal technology platforms but also as a storage option for corporate, e-discovery, and transactional data.

Of the respondents, eight were in-house attorneys, 14 were in-house legal personnel, such as head of legal services and lead e-discovery engineer, and nine were from law firms. All respondents were responsible for e-discovery decision-making at their office.

Ari Kaplan, principal at Ari Kaplan Advisors, noted that while lower hosting and storage cost remains a significant reason many are using the cloud, there are several other factors in play as well. Given the widespread use of programs like Office 365, he said, “companies have been using the cloud for many years now” and are becoming more comfortable with the technology.

What's more, “companies are also becoming increasingly comfortable with the security in the cloud as cloud providers become better known and organizations recognize that providers can typically match or exceed any cybersecurity protection that they can offer internally.”

Still, most respondents said their corporation or law firm lagged in deploying cloud or hybrid solutions in-house. Yet, Kaplan believes it is only a matter of time before cloud becomes pervasive in legal, noting that many legal professionals are reevaluating their technology because of client demands and upcoming data security regulations such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Beyond bringing in more cloud services, most corporations and law firms were also leveraging e-discovery outside their litigation needs. According to the survey, 62 percent of respondents in legal departments said regulatory disclosures qualify as electronic discovery, meaning they deploy e-discovery tools to meet regulatory needs.

What's more, 71 percent of in-house respondents said they engaged in data discovery beyond regulatory matters or litigation, while all law firm respondents said the same as well. Kaplan noted that beyond traditional uses, e-discovery is likely also deployed for due diligence, internal investigations, contract review, and data governance tasks.

How legal uses e-discovery tools is also evolving. A majority of respondents, for instance, noted that technology assisted review (TAR) has become an expectation when performing e-discovery.

For Kaplan, this is a sign that the technology is now effective enough to become a necessity in document review. “The technology has gotten so much better in the last few years, and as a result there is a greater confidence in TAR,” he explained.

He added that TAR is also likely demanded these days because law firm and corporations are more aware of the technology. TAR is “increasingly becoming embedded in any e-discovery tool, and there is an expectation that organization will apply some level of technology to a data set to eliminate completely irrelevant or unnecessary data.”