Extract from Trudy Knockless’s article “Data Explosion Escalating Risks for Already-Overextended Legal Departments”
Companies are struggling to manage vast amounts of data—a challenge that’s escalating their risk exposure at a time when the regulatory climate has also grown more daunting.
And there’s no relief in sight. A new report from FTI Consulting and Relativity found that 85% of general counsel expect risk and demand to increase even more rapidly in the coming year. On top of that, 51% say disputes and investigations have become a top-five risk category, gobbling up budgets and straining manpower.
And almost everything companies do creates more and more data, raising the potential for privacy violations and other miscues.
“Not surprisingly, with new governments in the UK and the United States, we saw a substantial increase in chief legal officers reporting regulatory compliance as a major risk,” said David Horrigan, discovery counsel and legal education director at Relativity.
“Data privacy and data protection lead the way as regulatory risks, and, in the era of rapid change, an overwhelming majority predict risk to increase at an even faster rate.”
