If you’ve worked in e-discovery in the last few years, you’ve probably heard someone say that managed services are the future of e-discovery at some point. Law.com, Inside Counsel, and LegalTech News have all written at length about how a managed services approach is the smartest approach to e-discovery, especially when weighed against the cost of bringing e-discovery in-house (which is estimated at about $1 million for a modest-sized capability). They all cite a few of the same major factors, including:
Exponential and unpredictable increases in e-discovery data volumes from year to year
High costs associated with keeping up with ever-evolving technologies
Growing concerns around data storage and security
In-house e-discovery requires stable staffing and constant updates to keep up with varying data volumes and new or obsolete technology, so blended offerings have started looking more and more attractive to law firms and corporations as they consider ROI and their case needs more carefully. Security is also much more difficult to guarantee with multiple e-discovery providers storing client data in multiple locations, and security has never been a higher priority for law firms and corporations than it is today. Clients want the fastest, most accurate results, which will be much harder to deliver using multiple partners and systems for e-discovery, so an approach that leverages the infrastructure, bandwidth, and technology offered by a MSP (managed service provider) can help clients keep their e-discovery budget down without sacrificing quality or security.
Unfortunately, relying on someone else to host e-discovery means relinquishing some level of control. One of the main pain points that clients have when working with third-party providers is that they’re then beholden to external IT or Litigation Support staff to address simple requests. No one likes going through a middleman when they can easily do something themselves, especially when they’re working under strict time constraints. Another major headache for clients using managed services is that they lose visibility into their review. Clients often find themselves waiting on their MSP to send over important information like usage reports or billing statistics. They want immediate insight, and who can blame them? It’s their data and their dollar, after all.
Fortunately for all parties involved, there are ways that service providers and law firms managing e-discovery can offer clients the control and visibility they want without putting more of a burden on Litigation Support or poking holes in security. Delegate, a self-provisioning tool for Relativity, allows designated Client Admins to manage their own users, groups, workspaces, and matters without being granted system-wide admin privileges or access to other clients’ data. With Delegate, Client Admins only have access to the users, workspaces, groups, and matters that belong to their own Relativity Client. Delegate empowers clients to handle simple administrative tasks for themselves whether they’re at their desk or on-the-go. Clients are happy because they don’t have to wait around for their support ticket number to come up, and Lit Support is free to focus on providing a faster, more accurate review. Gone are the days when you have to get a Lit Support team member out of bed to change users’ passwords! Broadcast, a cross-workspace dashboard reporting tool, lets you create and customize dynamic reports on important client data, like billing and usage statistics, and make reports available to clients right within Relativity – even if they have multiple active workspaces. Broadcast eliminates the need to export to any external reporting systems and gives clients easy, centralized access to the information that matters most to them.
Together, Delegate and Broadcast become a powerful client portal where clients can update Relativity objects themselves without burdening the Lit Support team and can track their usage over the course of the month and pivot accordingly. If you’re interested in enhancing your Relativity managed services offering, contact sales@milyli.com to set up a quick demo of Delegate and Broadcast. If you’re working with a MSP or law firm that doesn’t currently offer greater control and visibility into your review, let us know so that we can help you get the most out of your managed services.