The results are in from the Fulbright & Jaworki’s 2009 Litigation Trends Survey, and about half of corporate counsel surveyed predict that litigation costs are going to grow in 2010 because of the soured economy. In 2009, the majority of companies saw a rise in litigation, and the survey shows that in-house counsel is proactively combating rising litigation costs in 2010 by taking control of their e-Discovery costs.

Implementing and enforcing a solid, defensible document retention policy and stepping up enforcement efforts is one of the key strategies Counsel is using to control e-Discovery costs. Counsel is also finding that shoring up their document retention with improved policies and shorter retention schedules are also proving to be effective cost control measures. By focusing on retention, companies are collecting a significantly lower volume of documents, which directly impacts their litigation bottom line in terms of collection and review costs. In addition to lower litigation costs, less volume also means fewer settlements to prevent exorbitant legal fees and lower information storage costs.