Applied Discovery Survey to Assess Changing E-Discovery Practices Magnified by Economic Downturn.

How are Legal Professionals Coping with Economic Pressures in a Dynamic E-Discovery Industry?

BELLEVUE, Wash. -- Applied Discovery, a division of LexisNexis and a leading provider of electronic discovery products and services for complex legal matters, is conducting an industry-wide survey to gauge how corporations and their legal teams are coping with changes in the e-discovery market in the midst of the current economic crisis. The brief survey is available on the Applied Discovery website at www.AppliedDiscovery.com/Survey and will be open from April 7 through April 30, 2009. Participating corporations, law firms and government agencies will be granted access to the survey results, which are expected to provide a useful benchmark of how users of e-discovery services are adjusting to industry and economic issues. Key issues include: dramatic increases in the quantity and scope of discoverable data, growing case complexity, increasing economic pressures, and changing approaches to gathering and reviewing electronically stored information (ESI).

Cathleen Flahardy, editor, InsideCounsel Magazine stated, "The increase in the size and scope of the e-discovery business during the past decade has changed the e-discovery landscape as we know it; the ESI gathering and reviewing process is more complex, expensive and risky. We're looking forward to seeing the Applied Discovery survey results to learn how corporations and their legal teams are dealing with the changes and which approaches they find most successful."

Applied Discovery vice president of e-discovery affairs, Virginia Henschel, explained why it is in the best interests of law firm, corporate and government legal professionals to participate. Henschel stated, "We understand that there are many approaches to gathering and reviewing ESI, each with trade-offs in terms of time, efficiency, risk, cost and defensibility. We hope this survey will take the pulse of the industry and help to reveal what is working best and what is causing the most angst as practitioners face the compounding issues of the rapid growth in digital data, changes in technology, emerging new standards and burdensome economic pressures impacting legal staffing resources and budgets."

These e-discovery-related concerns feed into the broader spectrum of challenges corporations face in today's volatile economic climate, including fears of being targeted for litigation as class action lawsuits are on the rise. This increase in potential corporate risk comes during a period of unprecedented legal professional layoffs as reported by several sources, such as the ABAJournal.com that reported the elimination of approximately 3,500 law firm attorney and staff positions in March 2009.1 Applied Discovery will use the results of the survey to better understand how economic pressures are affecting the e-discovery process in order to adapt its solution offering in response to the emerging challenges clients face today.

About Applied Discovery

Applied Discovery (www.applieddiscovery.com) is a leading provider of comprehensive electronic discovery services to the legal industry. Its award-winning review platform is used by the nation's top corporations and law firms for complex e-discovery matters. Applied Discovery is based in Seattle, with East Coast headquarters in New York City and regional offices in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Applied Discovery was acquired by LexisNexis in 2003.

LexisNexis[R] (www.lexisnexis.com) is a leading global provider of content-enabled workflow solutions designed specifically for professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. LexisNexis originally pioneered online information with its Lexis[R] and Nexis[R] services. A member of Reed Elsevier [NYSE:ENL; NYSE:RUK] (www.reedelsevier.com), LexisNexis serves customers in more than 100 countries with 18,000 employees worldwide.

1 Neil, Martha. March 31, 2009. March Mayhem Tally Tops 3,500 After End-of-Month Law Firm Layoffs. ABAJournal.com, http://abajournal.com/news/end-of-month_law_firm_layoffs_put_march_mayhem_total_over_3500/ (accessed April 6, 2009).