The American Bar Association 2018 "Legal Technology Survey Report" released last month found law firms of all sizes are receiving and sending more e-discovery requests compared to the past few years.

For the litigation technology and e-discovery report, 68 percent of respondents said they received an e-discovery request on behalf of their client, compared to 64 percent in 2017 and 2016, and 62 percent in 2015. On average, respondents received 42 e-discovery requests on behalf of their clients, the ABA reported.

The ABA surveyed over 3,000 lawyer participants for the litigation technology and e-discovery report, including solo practitioners; lawyers at boutiques that house two to nine attorneys; attorneys at midsize firms, which the ABA defined as law firms that employ 10 to 99 attorneys; and lawyers at firms with over 100 attorneys.

Overall, e-discovery requests were above 60 percent in 2018, regardless of a law firm’s size. The ABA reported an increase from 2017’s 49 percent to 2018’s 63 percent among solos, while requests fell 5 percent to 73 percent overall for boutiques. Meanwhile, midsize firms reported e-discovery requests shot up 10 percent to 75 percent total, and 100-plus attorney firms went unchanged from 2017 at 64 percent.

Lawyers who practiced primarily in litigation (93 percent), employment/labor (91 percent) and personal injury (89 percent) were most likely to report that they’d received e-discovery requests on behalf of their clients.

Thirty-five percent of respondents also said they never make e-discovery requests, a decrease from 2017’s 42 percent.

What's more, 23 percent of attorneys said they make e-discovery requests on behalf of their clients three to 11 times a year, a 5 percent increase from 2017. Attorneys practicing litigation (92 percent), personal injury and employment labor (89 percent each) and criminal law (86 percent) are most likely to send e-discovery requests, according to the study.

Still, the report also found that only 45 percent of cases involved e-discovery or ESI in 2018, a decrease from 51 percent in 2017.

However, only boutiques and midsize firms noted a decrease in cases involving ESI or e-discovery. Law firms with 100 or more attorneys reported the most significant increase in ESI or e-discovery materials in 2018 with 76 percent from 2017’s 69 percent, while solo practitioners also reported an increase, but by only 1 percent.

When e-discovery is needed, some lawyers outsource that work. Of those that do, 35 percent use a litigation support bureau, or e-discovery consultant, followed closely by computer forensics specialists. Lawyers within the U.S. are being used 15 percent of the time for e-discovery, a stagnant number from 2017 but a 7 percent decrease from 2015.

When lawyers in firms do perform e-discovery, the ABA found 28 percent prefer “simple review solution(s),” while 25 percent want “all-in-one-solutions.” Eighty percent of respondents who processed ESI said they used keyword searching in the review, while 36 percent said they used concept searching and 12 percent said they used predictive coding.

Firms with 100 or more lawyers were more likely to use predictive coding (21 percent), followed by 12 percent of midsize firms, 10 percent of boutiques and only 3 percent of solos. Of those that did use predictive coding, 73 percent said they used it for data culling, while 67 percent used it for document prioritization. Around half, 53 percent, said predictive coding was used for checking the work of a review team.

The ABA also noted respondents used predictive coding when factors such as the amount of documents and a short time frame/deadline could benefit from software. However, 63 percent of respondents said the size of the case didn’t warrant predictive coding.