July 8, 2011

What Does “Cost-Effective” eDiscovery REALLY Mean?

If you’ve been in the discovery business long enough, you’ve surely seen a wide array of pricing models for eDiscovery services.  Some may remember the day when ESI processing was as high as $4,000 per gigabyte!

Today, pricing has changed, but one thing hasn’t – the wide spectrum of pricing models offered.



MULTIPLE CHARGES: On one end of the spectrum, you might be “nickeled and dimed” for every little charge related to EDD, including: data loading, processing, project management time, culling, de-duping, reporting, export fees, reviewer load, user fees, training, support, production fees, load file creation fees, hosting … and the list goes on and on.

“FREE”: On the other end of the spectrum, there are -- in theory of course -- completely FREE services.  Zip.  Nada.  “We’re just here to make the world a better place.”  Obviously, that model doesn’t exist.  It can’t.  If professional services or technologies are involved, there needs to be a cost to cover overhead and expertise.  

The old adage of, “you get what you pay for” holds true in most things in life, particularly eDiscovery.  It’s too critical a service for your partners to not be compensated.  And even if the entire process was performed in-house, there are still costs associated, including: software licenses, machine resources, and staffing required to manage the process.  But this doesn't mean the more you pay, the more value you receive. There should be a balance.

So, what part of the ‘Pay for Everything’ vs. ‘Completely Free’ spectrum is realistic?

Ideally, you’d have a solutions partner who's pricing falls somewhere in the middle.  If that could be accomplished, then it’s plausible to call the service “cost-effective” discovery. 

But here’s the money question … literally.   If you had a choice between a solution that was marginally cost-effective and one that was extremely cost-effective, which would you choose?  The obvious answer is the latter – with one big caveat – as long as you don’t sacrifice quality and/or service with the cheaper solution. 

So, if you could utilize an eDiscovery solution that gave you the best of all worlds -- technology, service, quality, provides the smallest, most relevant data, and was extremely cost-effective -- that would be ideal, wouldn’t it?  Of course it would.

With InterLegis’ unique ‘bottom-of-the-funnel’ pricing model, we offer just that.



On the same spectrum as above, InterLegis falls closer to ‘Completely Free’ than any other eDiscovery partner.  It doesn’t mean our solution is completely free (however, some components are) -- just pretty darn close.

WHAT MAKES INTERLEGIS SO COST-EFFECTIVE?
In short, InterLegis does provide many early-stage components of the discovery life cycle for free.  Yes, free.  And then once you’ve identified the smaller, responsive dataset that needs to be reviewed, we charge a low, one-time, all-inclusive fee for all remaining services. Specifically, a fee is charged only AFTER you’ve processed and culled your original collections. 

So what’s included?  Everything you need.

First, here’s what’s free:
  • Software installation - FREE
  • Data processing – FREE (This easily saves many thousands of dollars)
  • Early case assessment and cullingFREE

And then once you’ve culled your data to the smallest, most relevant set, you are charged a one-time fee on that data.  This all-inclusive fee covers everything else that remains throughout the discovery life cycle, including:
  • Relevant Data Export
  • Creation of a common load file format – OR- import into InterLegis’ Reviewer tool
  • Full use of InterLegis’ Reviewer tool and technologies (no other software platforms needed)
  • Unlimited data loads
  • Software Upgrades
  • Unlimited Users
  • User Training
  • Reporting
  • 24/7 Support
  • And ALL productions, native and/or TIFF – (also saves many thousands of dollars)

All the above is included in a single fee, resulting in potential savings of many thousands – even hundreds of thousands -- of dollars, depending on volume.  The only other fee you’ll encounter with InterLegis is a low monthly hosting charge – but only if you utilize our outsourced Hosted solution.  However, if you store data on your computer or network servers, there are no hosting fees.

Therefore, when determining a true definition of “cost-effectiveness,” it’s clear there isn’t a pricing model in the discovery industry today that provides the value that InterLegis does.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?
When InterLegis released the Desktop version of Discovery360, we wanted to provide a truly unique solution to the discovery industry … from both a pricing and functionality perspective. Since launching this pricing model over three years ago, we’ve heard some questions from our clients:

Q: “What’s the catch?”
A: There is none whatsoever.

Q: “What am I missing here?”
A: Not a thing.

Q: “Will you put that in writing?”
A: Absolutely!

Q: “Productions are REALLY included?  Even if I TIFF everything?”
A. Yes.

Q: “This is unbelievable.  I wish I’d found this solution years ago!”
A: Us too!

Q: “Finally, a pricing model that is easy to understand.”
A: Hurray!

Q: “We are going to use InterLegis for all our projects from now on.”
A: Awesome!

Yes, it's true.  You won’t find a more effective discovery solution today. To see a real example of extreme cost-effectiveness, read our Case Study.

WHERE TO GET DISCOVERY360 DESKTOP
Discovery360 Desktop is available immediately and free to install. To apply for a copy of the downloadable software, contact info@interlegis.com or visit www.InterLegis.com