Full-Time Hiring Soaring, Salaries Increasing as Q1 2025 Ends

March’s Eye on ESI webinar featured Jared Coseglia, founder and CEO of TRU Staffing Partners, Michael Quartararo, president of ACEDS, Maribel Rivera, VP of client engagement at ACEDS and special guest Kelly Twigger, CEO of eDiscovery Assistant. The group led a fast-paced, data-heavy discussion on the latest industry trends and offered practical tips on job searching and professional development for ESI job seekers and hiring managers.

Coseglia began the discussion with an explanation of where TRU Staffing Partners gets their trends and data from, as shown in the slide below. The information here is meant to provide a scope of how deep the TRU staff goes to find all the market data:

Then, Coseglia moved to the five hottest jobs that the team is representing. These jobs are global with a huge uptick in hiring being seen in the U.K. and in big U.S. cities. He pointed out that many of the open roles are in the middle of the market.

The team then moved on to the hottest trends that are occurring in March, many of which have changed since last month.

The first trend of note is the motivation job seekers give for wanting a new role – the number one reason for entering the job market is now wanting more money. For most of last year, the main motivator was job burnout. “I think a lot of job seekers have now accepted that they are not going to find a higher quality of life,” Coseglia said. “So, to make up for that, they want to be fairly compensated for their efforts.” And that quest has paid off, as Coseglia noted that many new hires are getting that extra bump in compensation at the time of hire.

Coseglia noted the changing landscape of the Motivations slide where opportunism is now moving up in the ranks. People are looking for what’s next. And much of that curiosity has to do with the advent of AI – people want to leverage their skills in that area and would like to know what’s out in the market.

Coseglia then moved to the second trend, which was also new to the list. TRU recruiters are seeing a huge uptick in the number of direct hires of full-time employees within the ESI industry. “We’re seeing the market move in three-week cycles,” he said. “First, there comes a wave of resignations, followed by a lot of opportunity in the month ahead.”

Next, Coseglia noted that TRU has had no fully remote placements in the past month – for the first time in five years. He said this was because most fully remote roles are contract jobs. And the ediscovery community is really focused on full-time hiring right now. Also, more fully remote roles are placed at vendors and, right now, law firms are doing the most hiring. Vendors are running leaner but are also hiring now.

Salaries are increasing for recent placements up to 20% for offers accepted. Coseglia noted that it was a big jump – almost double the usual percentage for new roles. This means that hiring managers want a higher caliber of talent and are willing to pay more for that talent.

The last trend shows that ESI skillsets continue to evolve. The slide below lists skillsets that are not exclusive to attorneys but are key areas of expertise that Coseglia said add leverage to any job seeker’s negotiations. These are the skills that TRU recruiters suggest ESI pros focus on to build their future careers.

A Special Report: Top eDiscovery Issues of 2024

Segueing from trends, Coseglia began a discussion of the top ediscovery issues in the case law from last year. Special guest Kelly Twigger authored a report through her organization that discussed the items shown on this slide.

Twigger explained the slide in detail. At eDiscovery Assistant, part of the application they offer includes a database of ediscovery case law. The team there tags all cases using their proprietary software sorting them into the areas shown in the slide. She noted that “Failure to produce” will always be at the top of the list because the bulk of ediscovery case law is about someone being upset that they didn’t get something or wanted more than they got. And “Proportionality” has become the go-to argument for why you shouldn’t do something in a case. Twigger said that in order for her firm’s software to add an issue in their system, the issue must have been discussed in the case. And she noted that from an employment perspective, these are the issues that come up “time and time again.” So if you are a technical person in the ediscovery industry, the more you understand about these issues, the more value you can provide to your employer. “You can look at the data on your mobile device,” she said, “And if you understand what the legal issues are, you can offer insights to your attorney partners about what you’re seeing on that data.”

On the next slide from Twigger’s report, Coseglia remarked on the extraordinary number of cases from last year with ediscovery issues.

Twigger said that part of the massive uptick in issues came with the onset of COVID. Courts started holding remote hearings, they instituted new practices like letter writing briefs, and they changed an attorney’s ability to contact the court quickly to set up special hearings. She noted that lawyers have become aware of the high number of ediscovery issues out there as well as the need to stay on top of them, including setting up protocols around how to handle certain issues.

“If you are knowledgeable about what you are entitled to, and you know how to go and get it, then you’ve got an incredible opportunity with ESI,” Twigger said, while noting that the numbers are still growing, with more than 700 cases with issues in her database so far for 2025.

Rivera noted that when she sees these reports that Twigger produces, she realizes that the more you understand ediscovery and the underlying case issues, you will be able to help solve the issues as they arise or help develop protocols to prevent the issues from happening. Coseglia added that for ESI pros wanting to move in-house to corporate positions, which are 5% of the available jobs right now, issue resolution is where you are going to have the most impact. Corporation are all dealing with these problems and you can leverage your skills with ediscovery issues to work them out.

Salaries Are Moving Up

A question from the webinar audience about how high salaries might reach moved the discussion to compensation. Coseglia said that he believed salaries will continue to go up and that hiring managers will continue to demand more seasoned talent to warrant the extra money. He also said he thought the locations or tiers as noted in the slide below soon won’t matter and that all salaries will become equal by role title. However, he noted that the UK tends to pay less for ESI talent than other areas.

Contract vs. Direct Hire in ESI Has Changed

Coseglia noted this area has been so erratic month over month that it’s easy to see how aggressively things have turned toward full-time hiring in the first two months of 2025.

“Part of this is due to the fact that work has been steady, the adoption of managed services has been prolific, and we haven’t seen as many spikes in the workflow or growth opportunities that would call for contract hiring to handle overflow,” he said.

As you can see from slide above, contract hiring has been slow since last year.

March data shows it's the perfect time to work with TRU Staffing Partners. Whether you want to join the ESI job market or need to hire experienced talent, now is the time to act. Get in touch today.