Amid the push and pull of corporate stresses that influence corporate thinking, one high-risk factor that stands out is legal hold. Corporate legal costs can expose a company to huge financial risks, which in turn drive risk avoidance measures by maintaining internal legal staff or the external legal firms. According to the yearly-published Fulbright’s 6th Annual Litigation Trends report, over half of all business entities surveyed in the United States and U.K. expect to see an increase in litigation. Specifically, small business are the most likely to see an increase in litigation. The primary cause for this prediction stems from a feeling of pessimism about the economy and its overall impact on businesses.

The three most common types of litigation facing businesses are: contract at 45%, labor and employment at 45% and personal injury at 10%. Labor and employment and personal injury are the fasting growing litigation types.

Although the Fulbright survey offers a view into the mindset of companies looking ahead, some valuable planning information should be considered when developing a litigation strategy. They also found that the use of legal e billing has facilitated many transactions, which only speeds up the process.

Because almost half all litigation cases are related to contract management, software designed to deal specifically with the management of contractual issues is clearly well worth the investment on the part of a company. A well-prepared company should deploy contract management software. Such software will document and record agreements between business entities, thereby ensuring that documents and agreement information are kept and recorded for a potential defense.

Matter management software has quickly become a must have software for companies to manage the volumes of legal matter generated, as it manages the legal process defined by the organization, which is quickly becoming a strategic business asset. This practice dovetails nicely with legal hold, because a company must manage all the documents, filings, records, briefs and reports discovered and recorded both before and during litigation. Since legal hold software exists, it can be integrated with matter management streamlining the entire process.