The survey measured the thoughts, perspectives and practices of the participating judges, according to the survey administrators.

“Examining the data, the message to e-discovery practitioners was clear: Stay on top of e-discovery. Request judicial assistance when needed, as most judges will wait for a request before they get involved in discovery disputes,” the report reads.

The report found competence in dealing with e-discovery is improving. Lawyers who have appeared before the judges in the past year exhibited “an adequate level of knowledge” 56% of the time, with only 18% lagging, according to the survey. Digging deeper, the survey specifically asked judges to measure their feelings about lawyers in their court:

“In the past 12 months, the lawyers appearing before you have shown an adequate level of knowledge and expertise in e-discovery matters.”

• Strongly disagree: 3%
• Disagree: 15%
• Neutral: 26%
• Agree: 52%
• Strongly agree: 4%

Other takeaways from the report show judges are slow to sanction counsel on e-discovery matters, with 13% of the judges surveyed reporting taking such action. However, 74% of those asked said they have taken “affirmative action,” such as requiring conferences or issuing warnings, to address problems in the past 12 months.

Says one judge surveyed in the report: “Ideally parties should be required to make a real effort to resolve issues on their own. Judicial resources should not be expended on resolving discovery disputes until the parties have first made a substantial effort on their own.”

The report also suggests it is important to “understand your client’s IT infrastructure and cooperate with opposing counsel to make sure you can manage e-discovery without judicial intervention.”

Further, 63% of judges said they, themselves, need additional education or training in some areas of e-discovery, while 70% called for a “modest” boost in education or training.

Cicayda Announces New Production Capacity for Cloud-based eDiscovery

As e-discovery grows in popularity, capacity and innovation are likely to follow. Recently, legal technology company Cicayda boasted its cloud-based e-discovery platform, Reprise, can produce more than 2.4 million documents in less than a day. The new solution does not charge by volume of gigabytes or per page, as its costs are included.

“One of the most stressful events in the eDiscovery process is production time. We attempt to reduce client stress by providing real time quality control checks, incredible production speeds, simple processes and we don’t charge extra for it, so there are no additional charges or surprises,” said Billy Hyatt, CEO of Cicayda in a statement. “We are committed to providing the most comprehensive and innovative solutions with a Discovery ecosystem for this and other cumbersome processes.”

The platform is designed to provide flexibility for single use and rolling production, according to an announcement from the company. The platform:

• Includes text, document endorsements, placeholder documents, a customer production load file, and natives;
• Includes “easily” produced data redacted and stamped with applied Bates numbers; and
• Is capable of producing PDFs with “embedded text, TIFF image, or JPEGs as the ESI agreement dictates.”