There can be a lot of costs associated with modern E-Discovery. some large law firms spend millions over just a couple of years.

A number of sources, such as the American Bar Association and Above the Law, can provide more insight into the cost E-Discovery. An average civil case in the U.S. has (on average) 130 GB of data gathered from about 10–15 custodians. E-Discovery services can cost up to $200,000 per year for even a small law firm.

These expenses are mostly a result of vendors skewing the system to their benefit. In addition to staying embedded in the E-Discovery process, they charge outrageous fees.

1. The cost of ‘processing’ your data.

But to do this, you must first process your files, which consumes a lot of computer resources that most small to medium law firms don’t have access to. The process involves the following:

Files that are duplicated are flagged for deletion. There is a possibility that up to 50% of your files are duplicates. For example an email is sent to you by a colleague with a file that you already have. The two are “exact” duplicates. Or, you fix a few errors in a Word document and save it in a different format. The two are almost identical. There are some similarities, but not quite. These duplicates need to be detected and dealt with (i.e., left untouched, tagged, hidden from search results, deleted).

The system files are flagged. When you upload whole folders, you’ll often upload ‘system’ files, such as .DAT, .DLL, .IDX, and so on. You need these files in order to run your computer, but they are not part of your case. You’ll waste time on them, just like with duplicates. As a result, they will have to be weeded out.

Embedded files are extracted. One example of an embedded file is a video clip in a PowerPoint slide. The slide is called the ‘parent’ document, and the video clip is called the ‘child’ document. It will now be possible to search and review both clips independently once you have extracted them from the slide.

Using a common format, files are converted. There are different formats for your files. You’ll need Microsoft Word to open Word documents, Excel to open spreadsheets, Adobe Acrobat to open PDFs, etc. It is now possible for you to open files without their parent applications by converting them into a common format.

2. Metadata extraction.

A lot of contextual information is included in electronic files in the form of metadata. When a file is created, edited, or transferred from user to another user, your computer records data about it. A file’s metadata can include information like when it was last opened, who opened it, etc. Imagine it as a digital footprint that tracks the history of a document. When building a case, it’s extremely useful. Consider the case in which a partner from a large law firm sends a client a document. Upon checking the document’s metadata, she finds that the document was written by an associate rather than the partner. The value of metadata such as this is immeasurable, 

3. Production cost for files to be reviewed and produced.

This is part of the acquisition cost. In order to make seance of all your data, we will index the data so that we can then search the data using the search terms you provide in-order to find important files, tag those files to add context, and help you redact privileged information.