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The overview results of the 2008 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey Report are available here in summary form. The full report - 360 pages long - is available for purchase.

The public report was in the August issue of Law Technology News and is on LTN's website at Law Technology News.

Survey rankings can be searched at http://www.sochaconsulting.com/topproviders.php

We ranked electronic discovery service providers based on a set of seven criteria:

• Experience and reputation (10%)
• Capacity (15%)
• Types of services (20%)
• Software usage (3%)
• Law firm rankings (18%)
• Corporate rankings (18%)
• Revenue estimates (16%)

To arrive at our ranking, we gathered information for each of the criteria, rated the information, and weighted the results. Weighting of each of the seven criteria is based on our judgment of relative importance of each factor, with the goal of providing a result that rewards the “well rounded” providers.

We used a blend of criteria because we felt it would provide a more nuanced ranking than could be had using any single criterion, such as revenue.

In the lists below, (L) = the listing at the Socha Consulting vendor page, where you can see information about services offered, geographical coverage, and office locations.

According to our survey results, the top five market leaders in 2007 were, in alphabetical order:

We ranked electronic discovery software providers based on a set of seven criteria similar to the ones we used for service providers:

• Experience and reputation (10%)
• Nature & scope of software offered (3%)
• Capacity (5%)
• How extensively consumers used the software offered (30%)
• Law firm rankings (18%)
• Corporate rankings (18%)
• Revenue estimates (16%)

To arrive at our ranking, we gathered information for each of the criteria, rated the information, and weighted the results. Weighting of each of the seven criteria is based on our judgment of relative importance of each factor, with the goal of providing a result that rewards the “well rounded” providers.

We used a blend of criteria because we felt it would provide a more nuanced ranking than could be had using any single criterion, such as revenue.

In the lists below, (L) = the listing at the Socha Consulting vendor page, where you can see information about services offered, geographical coverage, and office locations.

According to our survey results, the top five market leaders in 2007 were, in alphabetical order:

How we gathered information for our survey:

• We contacted potential participants - We started by contacting as many potential participants as we could. We sent individual email invitations to individuals at electronic discovery services and software provider s, law firms and corporations. We also post open invitations on the Litigation Support Mailing List (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/litsupport), on this web site, and anywhere else suggested to us.
• We sent spreadsheets to all participants - To each participant, we sent a spreadsheet to assist the participant in gathering data. Designed for easy review and data entry, the spreadsheets cover a wide range of electronic discovery activities. While we would love to have everyone fill out their spreadsheets in full, we know that will not be the case.
• Some participants stopped there - Some participants chose to provide information via spreadsheet as their schedule permitted and preferred to avoid scheduling an interview. For those people, we provided spreadsheets.
• We conducted telephone interviews - Many participants preferred a combination of spreadsheet and interview. We conducted the interviews by phone; generally they lasted between 45 and 90 minutes.
• We collected information from other on-line and off-line sources - Once again, we went to a variety of sources for information about the state of electronic discovery in 2007 and beyond.

How we evaluated the data we gather:

• For each participant in our Survey, we prepared a spreadsheet containing information from and about the participant's organization.
• We aggregated information from the individual spreadsheets into three higher-level spreadsheets, one for providers, one for law firm consumers, and one for corporate consumers. As part of the aggregation, we weighted and rated each line of information.
• As part of the rating process, we considered information obtained from sources other than interviews.
• From there, we prepared a master spreadsheet consolidating information from the three higher-level spreadsheets.
• Working with these spreadsheets, we prepared our analyses and ultimately our reports.

For additional information about the methodology we used, click here.

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