E-discovery may have just exited a particularly tumultuous year, but the industry has wasted little time turning the page to 2021. On Wednesday, the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) hosted a virtual panel titled "Preparing for the Corporate eDiscovery Realities of 2021," where the guests examined both how their work had been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges that lay ahead.

For instance, one of the more challenging aspects of 2020 is that e-discovery professionals, attorneys and most of the working public at large were forced to conduct business from home. While videoconferencing tech may have plugged some of the resulting communications gaps, handling the massive volumes of data that often accompanies e-discovery work on the limited bandwidth of a home Wi-Fi network can be problematic.

Sonya Judkins, manager of legal discovery and compliance at T-Mobile, suggested that the most substantial challenges to internet bandwidth will emerge once the pandemic subsides and work volumes return to pre COVID-19 levels. "I think that when 2021 comes and really hits home where things are starting to open back up or firms are starting to go back into the office or courts are starting to open back up, I think that is when we are going to start to see it," she said.