Running an enterprise, whether it’s small or a multinational conglomerate, requires the expertise of many talented individuals. Understanding the complexities of local, national and international rules and regulations is critical to ensuring the success of any business.

FTI Consulting is an advisory firm with a global reach of 24 countries, ensuring that assets of enterprises are protected by providing legal, regulatory and economic guidance. A study by the division of FTI Consulting, FTI Technology, released the results of corporate e-discovery trends. 

E-discovery, or electronic discovery, is the process involving the search of electronic data so it can be used as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case, as well as enabling enterprises to analyze, collect, identify, produce, preserve, process and review their data. This type of discovery is carried out off-line or on a network.

The rules and regulations of acquiring digital data are still being hammered out, and it will be some time before the legal, personal, constitutional and privacy issues will be resolved to address the complexities of digital domain.

The 2013 Advice from Counsel Study addressed many of the issues organizations will be facing in the future regarding e-discovery. The result of the study comes from the Fortune 1000 counsel, as they gave their predictions and advice on e-discovery and its future. The report provides a view of the future and some guidance on how corporate counsel should approach the process of e-discovery.

Guidance and predictions it offers based on its findings:

• Sixty-four percent of in-house lawyers in the survey predict big data will have the greatest impact, as well as challenge e-discovery by 2015.
• The introduction of BYOD policies will introduce more challenges, according to 32 percent of the respondents
• Predictive coding is seen as a technology that can improve e-discovery, with 57 percent expressing a positive outlook
• Collaboration in e-discovery will be key, as 73 percent of the respondents expect in-house counsel, outside counsel and service providers will be collaborating more by 2015.

"Over the past four years, Advice from Counsel has served as a benchmark on the key e-discovery strategies and tactics for corporate legal teams. This year's report continues the tradition and provides prescient and practical guidance for corporate counsel in targeting and improving the complex and costly e-discovery process," said Mike Kinnaman, Senior Managing Director in the FTI Technology practice.

The process of finding the right information digitally will require expertise from the legal and technical sector. As more and more companies become global players, the rules and regulations pertaining to digital domain in each country will eventually have to be consolidated to make the information more accessible.

Only time will tell how well the parties involved will cooperate.