Every year outside counsel, in-house counsel and legal technologists and consultants undertake a massive pilgrimage to New York City for LegalTech. This year's event, which began Feb. 5, just wrapped up Feb. 7.

In case you're one of the uninitiated, LegalTech is like the Super Bowl of legal technology events. It's massive, taking up four floors of the Hilton New York Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Hundreds of vendors fill every nook and cranny of floor space, promoting their products and services to the thousands of attendees.

LegalTech is the best place to spot the legal technology trends for the coming year. I had the privilege of speaking to dozens of vendors and professionals to find out firsthand what these trends are.

First, like last year, bringing the e-discovery process in house was still one of the most prominent developments. Vendors that for many years advertised their offerings solely to law firms are either shifting their marketing approach or are tweaking their products to get a piece of the in-house pie. For these companies, the sales pitch is pretty much the same across the board–general counsel want more control over the e-discovery process. And they're right. Large and small legal departments alike are looking at better ways to keep costs low and gain more transparency into the e-discovery process. As companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. have shown, the best way for them to do this is to take the responsibility of vendor selection out of the hands of outside counsel and bring it inside.

Another trend is the development of software that legal departments can use to ensure a defensible e-discovery process. A handful of vendors are diving into this area, possibly because established players have already spoken for the nuts-and-bolts of e-discovery, such as processing, review and production. These vendors are selling products that keep tabs on e-discovery workflow, creating logs of search terms and tracking custodian lists. When it's time to go to court, these programs can spit out documentation that provides transparency into the process, which counsel can then turn over to the opposition or a judge to prove the discovery's defensibility.

The last trend is an old one, but with a twist. Once again, legal departments will face increasing pressure from their internal clients to cut costs. But because of the expected downturn in the economy, in-house counsel can expect that pressure to go through the roof. In efforts to save money and track costs, e-billing and matter management solutions may become more of a necessity than ever. These vendors are anticipating this boost and have begun creating more advanced dashboards and visualizations to help counsel better understand where their money is going. In addition, early case assessment tools will become increasingly important allowing litigators to make the call early on whether its more cost-effective to pursue a case or settle it.