Litigation spikes from mass tort litigation and class action lawsuits can happen at a moment’s notice and carry on for years. Legal departments should not be caught flat-footed by a litigation spike hitting their companies when they have unparalleled access to the litigation analytics and legal tech tools needed to recognize, analyze, and address new challenges.

Starting in January 2020, 3M Company faced the ultimate litigation nightmare to the tune of several thousand new product liability cases per month, with over 227,000 cases last year. This marked an increase by a factor of nearly 45, from just over 5,000 cases in 2019. The overwhelming majority of the cases are related to alleged personal injuries, specifically, product liability claims surrounding a line of earplugs sold by 3M. It remains to be seen how this will play out in court, but from a litigation analytics perspective, a large portion of this story is already written.