This month, the Coalition of Technology Resources for Lawyers (“CTRL”) released the results of its survey regarding the use of analytics by corporate legal departments. Data analytics is the use of specialized data systems or software that uncovers patterns in data that can aid in a company’s decision-making and reduce costs. According to the survey, in-house counsel are increasingly using data analytics for a variety of tasks and nearly all surveyed agreed that data analytics will play a crucial role in the future in the services they provide to their companies. Ninety-nine percent of practitioners surveyed by CTRL agreed that data analytics “will be very important, will be considered indispensable, and use will be widespread.” 

While attorneys provide legal advice to their clients, they are sometimes the recipients of such advice from their own counsel, including in-house firm counsel. Agreeing with recent decisions by the highest courts of Georgia and Massachusetts, a panel of the First Department Appellate Division this June handed down a decision declaring such advice protected by the attorney-client privilege. See Stock v. Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP.