There are many ways that technology can help save costs in respect of litigation, but sometimes it is challenging to identify them precisely due to the fact that no two cases are identical. Further, the perception is that computing power and storage is "cheap" - especially around basic cloud-services.
Technology in a litigation context though requires much more sophistication and specilisation due to the nature of what is being done, how it is being done and the controls around it. Anyone (with deep enough pockets) can buy the latest technologies, which means that it is often the quality of the consultants that is the differentiator, ensuring that they know and understand the entire process, rather than being "button-pushers."
Having said all that, technology assisted review (or predictive coding), enhanced workflow, automated processes (e.g. translations) and non per-GB pricing models can make significant and telling inroads into costs.
In a survey of in-house lawyers, 50 per cent said they had seen zero cost savings as a result of the use of technology by their primary legal services adviser over the past 12 months. In contrast just 2 per cent of clients surveyed said their primary legal adviser’s use of technology had helped them achieve cost savings of between 31 and 50 per cent on their most significant matters. More encouragingly for clients, the survey did confirm that some were seeing at least a degree of cost savings thanks to firms using technology. For 7 per cent of respondents those savings were as high as 20 per cent, while for another 40 per cent (20 per cent each) the savings were between 6 and 10 per cent or up to 5 per cent.
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