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What’s the Difference?

In-and-Out, All-In, Bundled and Managed Services.

Given the fact that budgetary constraints are one of the leading elements impacting the conduct of discovery, eDiscovery continues to challenge law firms and legal departments due to a lack of consistency and transparency in pricing. This lack of consistency and transparency appears to have many reasons with most originating from the fact that eDiscovery solutions (software and/or services) tend to be complex and require an understanding of need, volume, and duration before a quote can be provided – which aren’t always known at the outset.

The best eDiscovery vendors are increasingly offering customized pricing solutions based on a consultative approach that takes the time to understand budgetary constraints and specific needs of a matter first. This approach helps legal teams avoid paying for unnecessary services and facilitates an informed conversation that saves legal teams and clients’ money and potentially achieves a better outcome on their behalf.

This article investigates the differences between In-and-Out, All-In, Bundled and Managed Services pricing solutions to provide some insight for legal teams as they choose the arrangement that’s best for them so that they never feel forced into a prescribed model that may not be the best fit for their unique needs:

In-and-Out, All-In and Bundled pricing solutions are based on pricing per GB. For legal teams to get the most out of per GB pricing, there’s a lot that must be clarified beforehand. Things like filter criteria, search terms, user licenses, Project Manager involvement, processing arrangements and presumed length of hosting.

In-and-Out pricing configurations – This is the most known pricing configuration and is most applicable when a legal team has already identified search terms prior to engagement. As the name indicates, a per GB charge is applied to the data set upon ingestion, search terms and data filters are applied within the processing engine to cull irrelevant data. A per GB charge is then applied to the resulting (decreased) data set. That data set is then promoted to the hosting environment for further analysis and review.
All-In pricing models - This is a relatively new, more simplified pricing configuration and is most applicable when a legal team does not have much predetermined information about the data they mean to find. As the name indicates, a per GB charge is applied to the data set upon ingestion. Once data is in the processing environment, multiple search terms and data filters can be applied as more is learned about the matter to cull irrelevant data. There is no additional per GB charge on the resulting data set, which is then promoted to the hosting environment for further analysis and review.
Bundled Pricing Solutions – Pricing bundles are a fairly new development in eDiscovery and are a source of tremendous confusion for legal teams. In their purest form, a bundled pricing solution should include processing and hosting for a single per GB price. Additional items like user licenses, data analytics or training may also be included; however, many fly-by-night eDiscovery vendors package their service in a similar fashion to cable providers creating price bundles that include tools that are either unnecessary or totally useless in a particular matter.

Some law firms have done away with the billable hour in favor of more creative fee arrangements. Similarly, eDiscovery vendors are offering deep discounts on services, particularly for bulk purchase. Managed Services offerings are fixed volume solutions with pricing that can be simpler, more transparent and more dependable; however, it does require a contract commitment.

Managed Services offering - With managed services offerings, hosted storage space is divided into tiers (or plans) and their prices have been set in advance to be billed monthly. With a fixed volume plan, legal teams can do whatever they need with the space they have allotted themselves. They can add, delete, analyze, produce or reproduce as many files as are needed. With managed services solutions, there is one very key component that must be considered – the people managing the data are what truly makes a managed services solution successful.
Dedicated Project Managers – An extension of Managed Services offerings is the provision of on-site or off-site Project Managers to work within the Managed Services environment. In an industry devoting unequal focus on creating the next best technology, good Project Managers are still the most relevant aspect of any eDiscovery function. More and more firms are discovering that they no longer need to staff PMs for intermittent projects and can, instead, contract with an eDiscovery vendor under a monthly arrangement to gain access to experienced people to manage their data.

eDiscovery costs can quickly add up and the world of lawsuits and litigation is rarely simple. With custodians, witnesses, opposing counsel, court deadlines, depositions and motions, the burden on legal teams to understand how and why they are being billed by the eDiscovery vendor has become equally complex. While many vendors tout detailed capabilities sets, flexibility, fast delivery and security approaches, legal teams overwhelmingly value trust and pricing when it comes to choosing to an eDiscovery vendor.