CaseCentral Leads eDiscovery Software Usage Growth in 2009 Am Law Tech Survey

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - November 17, 2009) - CaseCentral, the leader in secure, on-demand eDiscovery software for corporate counsel and law firms to simplify and take control of eDiscovery, today announced that CaseCentral led all vendors with the largest gain in usage by Am Law 200 law firms in the 2009 Am Law Tech Survey. The survey, released in the November issue of The American Lawyer, showed a 9 percent growth for CaseCentral, the highest among all vendors, while the majority of vendors, including Attenex, Autonomy, Kroll, and Stratify, decreased by as much as 10 percent from 2008.

"Probably the biggest trend I'm seeing is firms looking to control costs by leveraging IT spending," says Daniel Gasparro, chief information officer and executive director of firm operations at Howrey. "This is being accomplished by weeding out those things that are used by one or two people, or [dropping] a solution that provides the same functionality as something else."

First integrated eDiscovery software platform

Law firms have increasing pressure to streamline litigation support and eDiscovery processes to become more cost effective and efficient. To meet these challenges, CIOs are leveraging IT budgets to deploy integrated solutions that reduce labor and the unnecessary use of multiple eDiscovery tools with repetitive functionality.

CaseCentral drives cost, risk and labor out of eDiscovery by providing the first integrated eDiscovery software platform that enables clients to begin with collection and processing, move to early case assessment (ECA) and extend their process through analysis, review, production and post-production re-use without exporting data or using other tools.

Measurable eDiscovery equals expense reduction

Law firms and corporations alike are faced with the economic imperative to improve litigation support and eDiscovery processes in order to drive cost, risk and labor out. The first phase of improvement entails moving from an event-based approach for single matters to a process-based approach across multiple matters. Further improvement requires overall process enhancement by using quantitative process metrics across matters and parties to lower cost, risk and labor requirements.

CaseCentral introduced the industry's first process analytics and dashboard, building on its multi-matter, multi-party eDiscovery software platform with single-instance document storage, which enables authorized users to receive real-time, quantitative measurement of key eDiscovery process points, and provides critical insight into eDiscovery costs, trends and efficiencies. This information is vital for law firms and corporate legal departments alike to measure cost (per document, per matter, per law firm), efficiency (review time, by firm, by reviewer) and effectiveness (review quality, by firm, by reviewer) for one or multiple matters. Subsequently, this capability enables quantitative eDiscovery measurement for budget forecasting, resource governance, risk and cost oversight, as well as managing matter timelines and production deadlines.

eDiscovery in the Cloud

The 2009 Am Law Tech Survey found that 84% of Am Law 200 law firms are using Software as a Service (SaaS) in some capacity to lower capital expenditures, reduce dedicated headcount for support, and to provide better security than most law firms can afford, including disaster recovery. Adoption of SaaS and cloud computing-based software continues to rapidly increase as law firms utilize reliable and proven systems for their clients' confidential information while drastically reducing application deployment time and receiving "instant on" availability for new matters. Initial cloud computing deployment and on-going maintenance costs are also much less than traditional on-premise software deployments.

A recent Gartner, Inc. report, "Market Trends: Software as a Service, Worldwide, 2008-2013, Update" published November 4, 2009, states "Adoption of the on-demand deployment model has grown for nearly a decade, but its popularity has increased significantly within the last five years. Initial concerns about security, response time and service availability have diminished for many organizations as SaaS business and computing models have matured and adoption has become more widespread."(1)

CaseCentral operates the industry's first litigation support and eDiscovery software delivered via multi-tenant SaaS. In early 2009, CaseCentral delivered the first private cloud computing-based eDiscovery software platform with centralized data management and enterprise-class security, reducing the risks typically borne by clients when they transmit proprietary and confidential data outside the firewall. CaseCentral's platform delivers single-instance storage along with the industry's only enterprise-class eDiscovery disaster recovery and business continuity protocol to safeguard client data.

"As litigation support and eDiscovery move well into the 21st century, there are three imperatives for any law firm or corporation looking to reduce cost, time, risk and labor and to increase quality: first is an integrated software approach to eDiscovery processes, second is a multi-matter, multi-party system that securely stores only a single copy of client data and third is the ability to quantitatively measure and report on eDiscovery activities in the system to drive down cost and labor," said Steve d'Alencon, Chief Marketing Officer at CaseCentral. "CaseCentral pioneered all three of these imperatives in our industry, while the majority of the market still uses legacy technology and 20th century approaches to solve 21st century problems."

About CaseCentral

Founded in 1994, CaseCentral is the leader in secure, on-demand eDiscovery software for corporations and law firms to simplify and take control of eDiscovery. CaseCentral enables repeatable, defensible and measurable business processes that significantly reduce eDiscovery risk, cost and time. The CaseCentral eDiscovery platform integrates early case assessment, processing, analysis, review and production capabilities, enabling customers to succeed with a single matter and seamlessly migrate to multi-matter, multi-party, multi-repository support within the same software platform. CaseCentral pioneered the use of process analytics, providing real-time measurement of review rates, quality rates and costs per document -- by matter, firm or user. CaseCentral has served more than 32 of the Fortune 100 and more than 83 of the AmLaw 100. For more information, call 1.800.714.2727 or visit www.casecentral.com. Read 'Case in Point' cartoons, the lighter side of eDiscovery, at: www.casecentral.com/case-in-point/.

About the Am Law Tech Survey

American Lawyer surveyed Am Law 200 firms to find out about technology trends and which products and services the firms were using. The survey received responses from at least 110 firms.

(1) "Market Trends: Software as a Service, Worldwide, 2008-2013, Update," by Gartner, Inc., Sharon A. Mertz, Chad Eschinger, Tom Eid, Hai Hong Huang, Chris Pang, Ben Pring, November 4, 2009.

Contact Information: Media Contact Greg Funaro Lois Paul & Partners 781-782-5896 casecentral@lpp.com