We are witnessing a digital workforce revolution. Organizations are embracing remote, collaborative working which is driving an unprecedented migration to the cloud. According to Statista, 50% of all corporate data worldwide is now stored in the cloud. By 2025, this number is expected to grow to 80%. Governments are rushing to protect citizens in this increasingly digital world, as technology companies rush to become cloud-first to take part in the revolution.

Almost every services-related industry is undergoing massive changes as the workforce digitizes and migrates to the cloud. The legal industry is no exception, despite its notorious inability to adopt new technology. E-discovery, the subset of the legal industry focused on data and technology management for legal, regulatory, investigative, and compliance issues, is at the forefront of these changes. In this article, we'll explore five of the biggest changes impacting e-discovery, and end with how the modern e-discovery practitioner must accept a reality of constant change.

(1) Who, What, Where, When: Identifying Data in the Cloud

Cloud and collaboration platforms have been the champion of a remote workforce, allowing individuals to work from their kitchen tables during a global pandemic. A cloud-based architecture allows employees to access their data anytime from around the world. And the seamless interface of cloud-based collaboration platforms enables remote workers to collaboratively edit a document, discuss it on a chat forum, and have a video conference about it—all within the same platform.