Why BP’s Global Head of Litigation Left to Consult on Data Analytics

It’s a trend that Jim Neath noticed before he departed his position as an associate general counsel and global head of litigation at British Petroleum.

“The electronic portion of complex discovery today is taking up a higher and higher percentage of the overall cost of defending litigation,” Neath said in an interview about why he took his new position at a consulting firm that applies data analytics to legal work.

He said a gap exists: Corporations want to run their legal departments more efficiently, but broadly speaking, lawyers, both in-house and at law firms, have been wary of embracing technology ...