It bedevils me that so much is written about the incredible costs of electronic discovery, yet little empirical research publicly available helps us get behind the headlines to the fine print of reality.
Even so, I have written quite a few posts about those costs, not ones I know well but which oppress general counsel, and still see little illumination in the inky darkness (See my post of Jan. 16, 2009: LPO activities devoted to discovery as a percentage of all activities; Feb. 7, 2009: do companies settle too early because of fearsome e-discovery costs; Feb. 13, 2009 #1: costs of translations in discovery; April 9, 2009: empirical research on a discovery cost model; Aug. 31, 2009: $4 billion projection of e-discovery spend; Oct. 24, 2009: component pricing at J&J; Dec. 1, 2009: more than $60 billion spent by US corporations; Dec. 9, 2008: controversy over temps who do review work; April 23, 2010: suggestion that the government collect data on e-discovery; July 14, 2010: major cost increases predicted; and Aug. 19, 2010: estimate of e-discovery market in US.).