Electronic data discovery is hot business.

• Date: 27 August 2007
• Author: Pribek, Jane
• Published date: 27 August 2007
• Author: Pribek, Jane

Byline: Jane Pribek

In 1987, there was one business dedicated solely to providing electronic data discovery (EDD) services. In 1992, there were about five more. In 2000, there were about 40. Today, there are over 600 offerings, or purporting to offer, these services. They range in size from very large enterprises, to one or two persons. So say George Socha and Thomas Gelbmann, two St. Paul-based law technology consultants who have studied the wildfire expansion of the EDD industry for the past five years. Their latest report, entitled the "Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey Report," concludes that in calendar 2006, commercial EDD revenues were about $2 billion, up 51 percent from 2005. Among other key findings, as they wrote in an article published in the August issue of Law Technology News: * The top 30 providers collected revenues of about $1.08 billion; * An additional 550-plus vendors accounted for another $592 million; * Judging from consumer and provider expectations, the market should grow at approximately 33 percent from 2006 to 2007, 28 percent from 2007 to 2008, and 23 percent from 2008 to 2009; and, * Translated into dollars and cents, this means the EDD market will exceed $4 billion by 2009. 'Very, Very Aggressive Growth' Socha was approached in Spring 2003 by a firm providing EDD, among other services, to study the status quo, potential growth, key issues and trends within the industry. That firm was looking to expand the scope of its EDD services, but wanted to be sure the market was strong. To their surprise, no market research firm had ever examined the industry, and those it had discussed the idea with said that, because it...