November’s Eye on ESI Shows a Thriving eDiscovery Job Market with Many Open Attorney and Contract Roles

Jared Coseglia, founder and CEO of TRU Staffing Partners, recently joined Michael Quartararo, president of ACEDS, and Maribel Rivera, VP of Strategy and Client Engagement, ACEDS, for a fast-paced state-of-the industry webinar focused on the latest eDiscovery trends as well as practical tips on job search for industry professionals.

Coseglia began the session by advising attendees to watch the recording of another recent TRU webinar, Unlock the Future of eDiscovery with AI: Essential Skills, Jobs, and the Latest in Relativity. The exclusive  60-minute webinar was co-presented by TRU and Relativity, and it explored the must-have skills for leveraging AI in eDiscovery, the critical intersection of jobs and training, and a look at new AI-powered features in Relativity. The session may be downloaded here from the TRU website.

What's Hot in ESI

Coseglia reviewed the latest trends in ESI hiring, including the top 5 hottest jobs TRU recruiters are tracking. 

Coseglia said, “We’ve highlighted just how many attorney-focused jobs TRU has seen come to market over the past month. Many of these types of roles are still open. You can see from the descriptions that these firms are looking for either a hybrid mix of leadership for large-scale review and review management OR technical review leadership management (sometimes mixed with AI or technology-assisted review skills). There is a lot of work out there for attorneys, particularly those with a technology skillset.”

Trends from October and Predictions for 2025

Moving into what’s trending now, Coseglia reviewed the following, as shown above:

• Many lit-support directors and managers have reported they received very big raises (up to 40 or 50%) this month (for 2025). Coseglia noted what they all had in common: They are all involved in some type of innovation committee or working group – whether it is ediscovery, legal firm ops, client service with a demand for innovation, or helping firms integrate AI technologies into workflows.
• Staff/ESI attorney roles are in abundance right now. Coseglia noted that he thought this was the gateway for a new breed of GenAI ESI lawyers. He said, “If you are an attorney with high-level technology skills, you might consider going to market because a lot of law firms are hiring for that skill in the next year.”
• Coseglia said that “this is a new era for ESI rainmakers” as TRU has seen this group make many employment changes very quickly. Those who have cultivated tremendously reputable practices are now in the market looking for the best possible places to grow their practices. He predicted that this trend of moving from much large firms to mid-sized and boutique firms will continue throughout 2025.
• An exceptionally high rate of job seekers working with TRU had multiple offers at the time of hire last month. Coseglia noted that this means the market is getting more competitive as hiring managers are competing for the same individuals for similarly titled and paid positions. He predicted this type of competition to increase, which would lead to higher salaries, over the next three to six months.
• Opportunities abound in ESI as Coseglia reported that TRU recruiters have seen new contract and vendor jobs hit a new six-month high. This is attributable to new, big projects coming in now as litigation increases. He said that because of the recent election results, the supposed deregulated culture and more scrutiny of regulations will lead to an increase of private litigation. When people start suing each other more, Coseglia said, there will be a lot more ediscovery business, and that will be very good for the overall ESI industry. “As these big projects come in, we’re seeing service providers choose contractors for many of their open roles. This is the opposite of what they have been doing for a long time now, and it really spiked in October,” he noted. They can’t project how much work will continue, so contractors work for these projects right now. Quartararo confirmed Coseglia’s point: deregulation absolutely leads to more private litigation, showing the industry will be busy as the new administration takes office.
• The struggle to hire full-time, in-office ESI pros in large cities like New York and San Francisco continues. Coseglia reported that it is taking firms in these areas who demand in-office presence two to three times longer to fill roles as it does for similar fully remote roles.

New Data on RelativityOne Use

The slide above shows Relativity adoption across the last seven years. You can see how RelOne adoption has grown since 2018: RelOne users leveraged that knowledge in their job searches to make strategic moves during the peak of the Great Resignation. This past year, only 50% of job seekers have RelOne experience, but Coseglia noted that made sense to him because many users who are on still on Enterprise are looking for new roles where they can expand their knowledge and use of RelOne. ESI pros feel RelOne use will make them more competitive as job seekers.

On the next slide, TRU’s 4,000+ applicants rated their knowledge of Relativity (and all of its facets) on a percentage scale. Coseglia noted that on the previous week’s AI webinar, the team from Relativity focused on two particular areas that pertained directly to AI. One was using Case Dynamics and the other was creating Relativity Dynamic Objects. It’s notable that only a small number of TRU job applicants who used Relativity scored themselves as experts in these areas. Coseglia pointed out that if job seekers want to know what skills they should master, those areas seem to be the most favorable to be valuable and differentiate yourself.

In terms of advanced analytics, TRU job seekers currently have less experience with the newer Relativity tools, including aiR:

Coseglia says that five year from now, the numbers in the Expert column will be much higher.

Number of Remote Jobs Dropping

Coseglia noted that the slide below shows there are very few full remote jobs in the ESI industry these days. In fact, the 30% rate is thanks to contract roles that have increased in recent months and are usually fully remote.

Contract vs. Direct Hire

In the last quarter, Coseglia said that contract roles have jumped from 25% to 45% of roles TRU has filled. Part of this is timeliness – orgs don’t have weeks to get full-time people acclimated to new roles. They depend on contractors to hit the ground running.

Motivations for Job Seekers

Burnout has slipped into the number two slot as the need for more money has influenced job seekers to enter the market. Salaries in both vendors and law firms haven’t changed much over the past few month.

The trending data from this month’s webinar shows how important knowing and mastering the latest technology is for job seekers. Those ESI pros who can leverage experience in areas such as AI, aiR, RelOne and ESI technology leadership can command higher salaries than their peers and obtain roles in leading firms who value that experience. Reach out to TRU today to learn more about these new and exciting opportunities.

Did you miss the live broadcast of this action-packed webinar? Click here to watch the replay.

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