Year’s end for this blog has typically been observed by an assessment of readership trends during the previous 12 months. Which articles have been most popular, as measured by reads and shares? Were there any subject areas that attracted more interest than others? We hope that, in collecting this information, we might glean a glimmer of insight into some of the leading concerns of the legal community we serve. We also hope there’s value in sharing this information with our readers.
Looking back, it does in fact appear that our readers’ concerns correlate strongly with the concerns of the broader legal community.
In 2020, the most popular article was Re-Opening After COVID-19: A Tall Order for Law Firms. No surprise there.
In 2021, a year marked by several well-publicized ransomware attacks on law firms and a growing awareness of the need for firms to harden their websites against hackers, Assessing Cyber Insurance Coverage for Data Breach Losses attracted more reads than any other article that year.
Data security issues continued to be on our readers’ minds in 2022, when Lawyers, Be Tough Customers When Purchasing Technology was the most popular article we published that year.
The year 2023 marked a turning point. That year articles addressing data security issues took a backseat to those discussing legal issues surrounding artificial intelligence. State Legislatures Appear Keen to Regulate Artificial Intelligence and State Bar Associations Escalate Work on Ethical Issues Raised by Artificial Intelligence were among the most-read articles that year.
2024 Reader Interest: Artificial Intelligence, Again
Looking over the readership data from 2024, several plausible conclusions might be drawn.
First, artificial intelligence technologies – and their legal implications – continue to claim the most attention among our readers. These articles topped our list of popular posts in 2024:
Technology has played a leading role in pretrial discovery practice for decades. Artificial intelligence is no exception. Currently, courts are worried that artificial intelligence will bring unreliable evidence into their courtrooms. And litigators, mainly, are studying how artificial intelligence can be deployed for the client’s benefit without compromising the professional ethical obligations of competence, communication to the client, and the need to closely supervise the use of non-lawyers in their practices.
Second, we observed strong interest in articles dealing with procedural rules for conducting depositions as well as articles reporting on disputes over the format of depositions.
Several jurisdictions have revised their rules on when a deposition can (or should) be conducted remotely, how remote depositions must be conducted, and what type of showing a party must make to obtain a court order directing either a remote or an in-person deposition.
These articles were popular in 2024:
Washington Revises Rules for Remote Depositions Can Insurers Dictate How the Insured’s Deposition Will be Conducted? Skeptical Magistrate Rebuffs Demand for In-Person Deposition Remote Deposition Convenience Doesn’t Defeat Forum Shopping Objections Courts Sort Through Deposition Format Spats
The apparent widespread interest in our reporting on disputes over deposition formats suggests that the time may be ripe for additional policy work in this area. Clearer rules and predictable outcomes would save both litigator time and client resources. Not to mention speeding civil litigation through busy court dockets.
Finally, articles addressing ways to recover from an opposing party’s misbehavior continued to be very popular in 2024, as they have been every year for the past four years. Turning Deposition No-Shows to the Client’s Advantage (published way back in 2021) and Florida Weighs New Rule on Attorney Behavior During Depositions (2022) are the most-read articles we’ve ever published by quite a wide margin. We can only hope that the professional challenges highlighted in these articles will produce solutions that bring about a more efficient, more civil, and more profitable litigation environment in 2025.
