One of the biggest beefs companies have with corporate litigation has been the rise in discovery costs, especially as Corporate America has entered the electronic era and creates exponentially more information to search. But many times, it’s the lawyers themselves who make the process more expensive than it needs to be.
That was the message expressed by federal magistrate Judge Robert Collings, who spoke recently at the IQPC Corporate Litigation Exchange. He noted that misunderstandings over e-discovery arise when opposing sides attempt to guess at the scope of a dispute, rather than coming to an agreement and sticking to it. The result, he said, is that parties take their best guesses at what the other side wants—and fail, leading to time-consuming and costly pre-trial hearings and disputes.
