Stock Finds in 'E-Discovery'

As of Dec. 1, the federal rules of civil procedure were amended to include "electronically stored information" as part of the discovery (evidence-sharing) process.

"Those rules had not really been updated to account for digital records," says French Caldwell, an analyst with Gartner. The change essentially means that companies should have a reasonable electronic-records retention policy in place and adhere to it on a routine basis.

The amended rules "will drive short-term growth for reactive e-discovery solutions, while the desire to wrap e-discovery into broader retention management strategies will drive significant market growth for years to come," Forrester's Murphy wrote.

He anticipates market consolidation over the next three to five years -- a trend already in the works. Over the past several years, Pitney Bowes (PBI) picked up CompuLit, CA (CA) bought iLumin and LexisNexis nabbed Applied Discovery.

First Advantage (FADV) bought the assets of EvidentData in October, then picked up DataSec earlier this month, both to boost its computer forensics and e-discovery services.

"As long as there are attorneys, there is going to be a market here," Caldwell says.

With many ongoing backdating investigations yet to be completed -- and with all companies facing ongoing management of massive amounts of data -- investors should take time to "discover" this sector.

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