2022 was a great year, as we seemed to finally have the worst of COVID in the rearview mirror and a return to a sense of normalcy. Business travel resumed, in-person conferences came back, and the eDiscovery market looked as good as ever. There were also a lot of exciting developments in the market, such as the consolidation of companies, pricing shifts, and more conversations about artificial intelligence. Now, as we move through the beginning of 2023, we would like to talk about some of the new and exciting things happening, not only in the legal technology space, but here at Avalon as well.

Analytics, artificial intelligence, and review

Over the past few years, everyone has been talking about analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), technology assisted review (TAR), and how lawyers can leverage technology to reduce the amount of time spent reviewing documents. This will not change in 2023. It may even become a larger discussion with more legal teams finally taking advantage of this kind of technology.

For now, however, regarding advanced analytics and AI, there is still not widespread confidence in and adoption of the technology. However, legal teams need to adapt or they’ll certainly get left behind. Tech savvy clients have an expectation of technological proficiency from their lawyers and do not want to spend unnecessary amounts of money paying attorneys to review documents that can be identified with AI.

Avalon has always made it a priority to be a leader in the legal tech space and we will continue to lean into technology offerings that give our clients a competitive advantage. As Relativity continues to lead the way with analytics and AI, Avalon will continue to focus on staying at the forefront of technology adoption and doing whatever helps our clients streamline their litigation spending.

Third-party collaborative applications, mobile devices, and Relativity Short Message Format (RSMF)

Different types of communication are becoming more prevalent in our day-to-day lives, throughout our personal and business relationships. Workplace communication includes email, Teams or Slack, text messages, and other types of messaging applications. While these forms of communication are convenient, they can also be discoverable and present challenges to legal teams.

Once litigation has begun, and there is an electronically stored information (ESI) protocol in place, there are specific challenges with respect to the collection of this data, as well as search and review. Relativity has addressed some of the issues with the introduction of Relativity Collect and their Relativity Short Message Format application. However, this does not address all data sources, specifically litigation with a large number of custodians across multiple geographical locations. This will continue to be a challenge for legal teams and their providers in 2023.

New pricing models

In 2022, Relativity announced a new “all-in” pricing model and that they would no longer charge user fees. This was in response to pressure from other providers that do not charge user fees and a desire to stay competitive in the market. This new pricing model does come with increased GB rates but is still competitive with what other review platforms are charging. Avalon has adopted this pricing model, which allows our clients – and their own clients – to save money. Keep in mind, that as more providers adopt this new “all-in” model, we can expect to see additional pricing shifts in the market.

Managed Review

While Avalon is a proponent of AI and legal technology, we firmly believe there will always be a need for attorneys to put eyes on certain documents in litigation. For law firms to be able to provide their clients with the most effective and efficient representation, they will have to take advantage of review teams with a lower billable rate. We are happy to announce that, in 2023, we will begin offering these services.

Stay tuned for updates on our website and through your dedicated Avalon litigation support team. And, of course, if you need assistance with anything, contact our experts.