Whistleblower allegations remain high and could climb higher. More than one-fifth of the respondents reported being subject to accusations by a whistleblower. Larger companies were more likely to be hit. Only 3 percent of respondents predict a decline in whistleblowers over the next 12 months.
As the United States unemployment rate declines, labor and employment litigation eases. Suits fell off across all areas, with the most pronounced drop in wage and hour disputes. But employment litigation rose in the United Kingdom, with sex discrimination cases leading the way.
For the fifth year in a row, class actions remained flat, with only a quarter of respondents having faced one or more class or group action in the past 12 months in U.S. courts. Employment and consumer cases led the way; while retail, financial services, and engineering saw slightly higher levels of class actions than other industries.
About one-third of companies said they used cloud-computing services. Of those respondents, a third have had to preserve or collect data from the cloud in connection with actual or threatened disputes or investigations. And about one-fifth of all companies have had to preserve or collect data from an employee's personal social media account.
Some 13 percent of respondents expect the number of in-house lawyers who manage or conduct litigation to increase in the coming year. Among industries, prospects for increases in in-house litigation management teams stood highest among tech, health care, energy, retail/wholesale, insurance, and manufacturing companies.
Sue Reisinger is a staff reporter with Corporate Counsel, a Texas Lawyer affiliate that originally published this article.
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