eDiscovery Daily Blog

Fall 2019 Predictive Coding Technologies and Protocols Survey Results: eDiscovery Trends

So many topics, so little time!  Rob Robinson published the latest Predictive Coding and Technologies and Protocols Survey on his excellent ComplexDiscovery site last week, but this is the first chance I’ve had to cover it.  The results are in and here are some of the findings in the largest response group for this survey yet.

As Rob notes in the results post here, the third Predictive Coding Technologies and Protocols Survey was initiated on August 23 and concluded on September 5 with individuals invited to participate directly by ComplexDiscovery and indirectly by industry website, blog, and newsletter mentions – including a big assist from the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS).  It’s a non-scientific survey designed to help provide a general understanding of the use of predictive coding technologies and protocols from data discovery and legal discovery professionals within the eDiscovery ecosystem.  The survey was designed to provide a general understanding of predictive coding technologies and protocols and had two primary educational objectives:

  • To provide a consolidated listing of potential predictive coding technology and protocol definitions. While not all-inclusive or comprehensive, the listing was vetted with selected industry predictive coding experts for completeness and accuracy, thus it appears to be profitable for use in educational efforts.
  • To ask eDiscovery ecosystem professionals about their usage and preferences of predictive coding platforms, technologies, and protocols.

There were 100 total respondents in the survey (a nice, round number!).  Here are some of the more notable results:

  • 39 percent of responders were from law firms, 37 percent of responders were from software or services provider organizations, and the remaining 24 percent of responders were either part of a consultancy (12 percent), a corporation (6 percent), the government (3 percent), or another type of entity (3 percent).
  • 86 percent of responders shared that they did have a specific primary platform for predictive coding versus 14 percent who indicated they did not.
  • There were 31 different platforms noted as primary predictive platforms by responders, nine of which received more than one vote and they accounted for more than three-quarters of responses (76 percent).
  • Active Learning was the most used predictive coding technology, with 86 percent reporting that they use it in their predictive coding efforts.
  • Just over half (51 percent) of responders reported using only one predictive coding technology in their predictive coding efforts.
  • Continuous Active Learning (CAL) was (by far) the most used predictive coding protocol, with 82 percent reporting that they use it in their predictive coding efforts.
  • Maybe the most interesting stat: 91 percent of responders reported using technology-assisted review in more than one area of data and legal discovery. So, the uses of TAR are certainly expanding!

Rob has reported several other results and provided graphs for additional details.  To check out all of the results, click here.  Want to compare to the previous two surveys?  They’re here and here:o)

So, what do you think?  Do any of the results surprise you?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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