Yesterday, we shared the rather depressing news that 92% of employers expect litigation to increase or stay the same next year — versus only 8% who expect a decrease.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at other interesting revelations from Fulbright’s 8th Annual Litigation Trends Survey Report. In short, employers are seeing more, more, more of everything.

• Employment Disputes #1. Once again, employment litigation is the #1 most frequent lawsuit type. Wage and hour, retaliation and age discrimination are the top 3 areas of monetary exposure.
• More Enforcement. The number of employers facing regulatory proceedings rose for the third straight year (40% now versus 37% last year and 34% in 2009). 90% expect the number of regulatory actions to increase or stay the same in 2012.
• More Costs. The median litigation spend jumped 40% from $1 million to $1.4 million. Nearly one-fourth of U.S. businesses now spend more than $5 million a year on litigation.
• More Suits. One-fifth of companies had 50 or more suits filed against them this year.
• More Big Suits. 39% of billion-dollar businesses were hit with at least one suit with more than $20 million at stake.
• More In-house. Companies continue to hire more in-house lawyers to manage litigation.
• More Alternative Billing. The number of companies using alternative fee arrangements to reduce costs rose 22% to 62%. The most frequent types are fixed fees (62%), blended rates (59%) and capped fees (51%).
• More Whistleblowers. The number of companies expecting an increase in whistleblower claims rose 32%.
• More Investigations. 91% expect their number of internal investigations to increase or stay the same.
• More SM. The number of companies that don’t restrict social media usage rose from 34% to 45%. Among those that do restrict SM, the most frequently banned sites include Facebook (41%), Twitter (33%) and YouTube (33%).

Here’s the full report, which should be required reading for all employers.

What % of employers predict that litigation will either rise or stay the same in 2012?

We gave you 5 choices:

1. 112%
2. 92%
3. 72%
4. 52%
5. 32%
6. 12%

The votes are in. Your most popular choice was 72% (with 40% of the votes). Next was 92% (27% of the votes), followed by 52% (16% of the votes), 32% (8% of the votes) and then 12% (6% of the votes). A rather surprising 4% of you chose 112% which … um … is mathematically impossible.

The correct answer? You were close. A whopping 92% of employers say they expect litigation to either increase or stay the same in 2012. That’s more than ten times the 8% that expect litigation to decrease.

This data is from the brand-new and always-fascinating (at least to me) Annual Litigation Trends Survey Report, available for free from the fine folks at Fulbright & Jaworski here.

We’ll discuss some of the report’s other highlights tomorrow. Stay tuned.

The Facts

The EEOC received a record 99,947 discrimination claims in fiscal year 2011 (which ended September 30, 2011). That’s the most in the agency’s 46-year history. The EEOC also extracted more monetary awards than ever before: $364.6 million.

Some other facts and figures:

• $170 million in settlements (also a new record) were achieved in the EEOC’s national mediation program.
• 5.4 million individuals “benefited from changes in employment policies or practices in their workplaces.”
• 500,000 people were reached by EEOC’s public outreach and education programs.
• 580 investigations alleging systemic discrimination involving more than 2,000 charges are currently pending.
• 261 lawsuits were filed by EEOC field units, including 61 systemic/class suits.

“I am proud of the work of our employees and believe this demonstrates what can be achieved when we are given resources to enforce the nation’s laws prohibiting employment discrimination,” said EEOC Chair Jaqueline Berrien. For more on this from the EEOC, click here.

What This Means for Employers

Now is not the time to take employment laws lightly. Please (1) make use of all the free tools on the left side of the Blawg, (2) check out all our latest tips in my most recent webinar here and (3) visit the Blawg daily to stay up-to-date on the law.