>> Preservation: William Hubbard, a law professor at the University of Chicago, has released a report on a survey addressing e-discovery preservation costs, and included the information in his package of comments regarding the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The survey was commissioned in 2011 by the Civil Justice Reform Group, said Mark Behrens, of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, who alerted Law Technology News to the report. (CJRG is a corporate and defense counsel group.)
Hubbard’s team collected data from 128 companies, “of all sizes and from a broad range of industries,” he notes in the report. The survey “generated conservative estimates of costs that are solely attributable to preservation obligations,” explained Hubbard, who reports that among the largest companies, estimated costs were more than $40 million per company, per year. The survey also found that 5 percent of litigation matters account for more than half of all litigation hold notices issued and that both large and small companies face similar preservation burdens. You can read his materials here.
