The Eye on ESI webinar for August 2024 paired TRU Staffing Partners’ Founder and CEO Jared Coseglia with Michael Quartararo, president of ACEDS, and Maribel Rivera, VP of ACEDS, for their usual monthly discussion showcasing the latest on industry trends as well as practical tips on job search and professional development for eDiscovery professionals. Rivera welcomed everyone to the webinar and asked Coseglia to begin the discussion.

Coseglia: The slide below is a new feature to this webinar, and it covers the top five hottest jobs we are working on right now. This slide will inform the conversation we’re going to have today, specifically the job at the top.

Customers are coming to us about jobs in the GenAl (generative A.I.) space – these are some exciting opportunities. We’ll talk more about the uniqueness of this position. Also, we have many eDiscovery analyst roles open now, particularly in New York, all with very high demand. Most of these roles are at law firms and they are in an office, which is making it harder for customers to fill these jobs. Next, we’re starting to see hiring for review management, governance, and ESI project managers tick up. We’ll unpack the numbers behind these roles as well.

Monthly Eye on ESI TRU Trends

And now onto this month’s TRU Trends:

First, the legal A.I. and Gen A.I. job market is really starting to mature. Hiring want everything humanly possible from an A.I. professional team member. The problem is, you can’t have all of that in one human being, and there is no one like that to hire. No one has a $50M budget to hire a whole team of A.I. experts with all the wants and needs out there. People have budget for a single role at best. So what’s going to happen is that the intensity and demand for all the wants for this person to manage is just going to keep building until we reach a tipping point, and we’ll have a defined hierarchy with clear roles and responsibilities. However, we’re so far from that now in A.I.

ESI and A.I.

We’re also seeing current ESI pros move into AI, GenA.I. and A.I. Governance roles. That’s where A.I. in law firms is currently being leveraged. However, you don’t have to leave ESI to wield AI. This will be a separate category. Vendors and consulting firms, who are usually on the cutting edge of technology are opening these new A.I. roles to begin building technology around the concept. There is a whole “lawyer” ecosystem that understand the A.I. EU Act, that’s focusing on contract negotiations, how data is being used or how it can’t be used. These are now job requirements. The problem is that now law firms want all of those skillsets in one person for under $150k. That’s where things are going to mature quickly.

No one in eDiscovery knows what A.I. will be as a “job” yet – but it will be in analytics and not a specialization. At some point, it will be a required skill.

Quartararo: I see A.I.’s real impact in document review. I don’t see it in other areas yet. It’s not going to impact things like identification, collection, and preservation.

Coseglia: But lawyers are negotiating that now – that is what I am seeing and hearing. Partners at law firms who are on the front lines of representing high-level customers are telling me that they are getting into discovery negotiation using certain A.I. components to validate their discovery. They think it will be effective and save costs, and that the outcomes are viable.

Quartararo: But don’t lose sight of this either: 75% of the cost of discovery, putting aside eDiscovery, is in that doc review space. It makes sense that we’re finding efficiency in new tools because that is the most expensive part of it. But if you are looking at something like collection, you still need a person to do the production. And trial prep – you need humans to do that.

Coseglia: I don’t want to be say that A.I. is coming to take people’s jobs away. That really isn’t true. But I do think that law firms’ goals are being influenced by rain-making partners on steering committees who are working hard to bring A.I. into firms. They are pushing to get training to their staff to build A.I. expertise. It’s a market strategy right now to appear to be on top of the technology.

Rivera: Yes, it’s about educating their clients. I think there will be a time when we could use A.I. in trial preparation, but it’s a tool – it’s not meant to replace people.

Coseglia: Right now, it’s the part of the eDiscovery job market that is the least predictable. Despite the unpredictability, there is a lot of opportunity, which is why we should pay attention to it. Many eDiscovery pros feel trapped in their jobs and they are looking for ways to expand – this is part of the marketplace that will impact every aspect of eDiscovery and if you are an early adopter, you will develop a reputation for being a thought leader. It opens up a lot of career mobility for ESI pros.

Another trend of note is that the volume of law firm hiring and vendor hiring is equal. That is due to two extreme trends: high pressure to decrease costs and increase margins on the vendor and consulting side, and on the other side, the in-house RelOne adoption at law firms that is pulling talent demand very high. I don’t think this equality will last for a long time. If you are an ESI pro with RelOne experience and you want to work at a law firm, now is the time to enter the job market. Those skills are fetching a premium.

Speed of Hire

The speed of hire slowed in July because of holiday and vacations, but TRU expects a lot of resignations in August. The slow speed is really dramatic visually. The top line is executive search. People are moving very slowly. While the job market itself is moving and is healthy, the speed of closing out hires is dragging. Everyone is taking a long time to make decisions. The exception here is with salespeople—those are speeding up and these new hires can still make an impact this year.

TRU has seen the number of stakeholders in interviews slowly expand on the employer side. More people participate in the hiring and that also helps slow things down. Contracting is NOT slowing down, it’s accelerating. That’s why we’re seeing contractors get more jobs than full-time people. The decisions are quick and decisive.

In-Office Requirements Shifting

The next trend is that law firms are continuing to show a preference and priority to people willing to come into an office. But the truth is that law firms are starting to loosen mandates on coming into offices overall. They understand that with in-office mandates, hiring and retaining staff will be a perpetual challenge.

The last point is boredom or lack of challenge in current roles. It’s a feeling of not knowing what is next. ESI pros are feeling that they don’t know where to put their passions and efforts. They are feeling unsure. They are looking at their leadership to help them and are not getting what they want. It’s hard to be both a manager and mentor. People need mentoring to know where their career is going. You’ll see on the slide below that interest in A.I. spurred a lot of candidates to move into the market.

Next over to Offer Acceptance: it’s down to 50% of people accepting a first offer. Candidates are currently getting multiple offers.

Here are the numbers: Law firm salaries have gone up for analysts at every level. Consultant and manager salaries have gone up because it’s difficult to get people into offices.

At vendors, some salaries have gone down, others have gone up where people want more sophisticated leadership and knowledge of review management.