By ANNIE DECK-MILLER
Buffalo Law Journal

Numbers don't always tell the story, but they do help us to chart the plot.

In that spirit, the Buffalo Law Journal partnered with the local chapter of the Association of Litigation Support Professionals on our first Legal Technology Survey. We polled staff and attorneys at law firms in Western New York, asking them about which services they handle internally and which ones they bring outside help in for, about some of the software they use in case management and litigation support, and about their e-discovery processes.

We got qualified responses from 20 people representing 13 law firms - a small sample, but a fair pool for our first-time effort, and one whose answers did offer a useful picture of the use of specialized legal technology.

Forty percent of our survey takers - 80 percent of whom work as paralegals, with more than half of the overall group focusing on some area of litigation - reported that they turn to outside vendors with help collecting electronically stored information, or ESI, while 45 percent look to litigation-support companies for help with processing such files. For image coding - an important element of electronic discovery - the largest share, 45 percent, say they handle that internally, with another 25 percent responding that they seek a vendor's help on that task.

Sixty percent of our respondent pool said only a fraction of cases they handle - 25 percent or less - involve ESI, and that the collection and review of ESI are the two most challenging parts of e-discovery. Another 25 percent of our survey takers, however, said at least three-quarters of their cases involve ESI, with the remaining 15 percent reporting that those cases represent anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of litigation at their firms.

The largest share of our respondents, 35 percent, said document review at their firms is handled primarily using printed documents. "The review of ESI largly depends on the attorney handling the case and the amount of data," noted a respondent from a midsized Buffalo firm. "We review in paper and with software." For reviewing e-mails, meanwhile, 42 percent use specialized software for e-mail analysis and processing.

On litigation-support software, the largest share - 45 percent - reported that their firms use Summation, followed by 25 percent who told us this question wasn't applicable for them, 20 percent who use a competing software, Concordance, and another 10 percent who use other applications for litigation support.

Candid feedback from some respondents offered valuable insights.

"The answers to some of the questions would for our firm be multiple answers, since in larger cases an outside vendor may be employed, while in others it might be done internally a number of different ways," wrote a paralegal at a midsized firm.

"At this point, I am sure every firm processes ESI in several ways," said a paralegal from a larger firm, "so (several questions on the survey) should have allowed respondent to choose more than one answer."

Duly noted.

We're grateful to all who participated in the 2009 Legal Technology Survey, and we welcome additional comment on the survey, or on use of technology at your law firm.

Was there a question we didn't ask, or a great software application we didn't include on our option list? Let us know - send an e-mail to BLJnews@bizjournals.com

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