4 eDiscovery Problems Your Small Law Firm Can Fix Right Now [It's Easier Than You Think]

27 October 2018 by Anith Mathai eDiscovery small-law-firm affordable

Badly designed software can complicate eDiscovery. Luckily, there’s a new generation of eDiscovery applications that can solve your 4 most common problems.*

Most small law firms have these 4 complaints about their eDiscovery software.

“The more documents we put in, the more it struggles.”
“My bill is often larger than I expected!”
“I have to pay more to access any advanced features.”
“The software is not intuitive, especially compared to other technology.”

So, what’s the solution?

Find well-designed software. The technology exists. It’s just a matter of using it right.

Let’s take the popular eDiscovery application GoldFynch as an example.

It’s part of a new generation of eDiscovery applications designed specifically for small law firms.

1. “The more documents we put in, the more it struggles.”

Many eDiscovery applications focus on the wrong things. They have advanced features (that small law firms don’t usually need) but don’t do the basics well. For example, they struggle to upload and search files smoothly. GoldFynch was designed for small law firms. So, it sticks to the features that your firm really needs – free and fast processing, a powerful search engine, review options like tagging and redacting, and simple case ‘production’. This means GoldFynch stays light and fast. And it can deal with any number of files. Literally. Since it uses cloud computing, to expand your storage space almost indefinitely.

2. “The pricing plan seems complicated.”

Here are the 2 ways you usually get charged for eDiscovery:

‘Fixed volume’ pricing: Storage space is divided into chunks (or ‘plans’)-e.g., 3 GB, 5 GB, 10 GB, etc. And their prices have been set in advance. So, you choose a plan you want and pay a fixed amount for it.
‘Per-GB’ (or, ‘pay as you go’) pricing: There aren’t any ‘plans.’ You pay a set rate for each GB of storage space you use.

Per-GB pricing may seem fairer. After all, you’re paying for only what you use. The problem is that for most small and solo law firms, the size of a case keeps changing. So, with per-GB pricing, how do you calculate what you owe? Say you start with 3 GB of data. Then you delete 1 GB after a couple of weeks. What’s your bill at the end of the month? Do you pay for the largest size your case got to-3 GB? Or its average size-2.5 GB?
GoldFynch solves this problem by using fixed-volume pricing. But it makes it fair by prorating the pricing. And it also gives you a per-GB rate as reference. This way:

You can use the per-GB reference to compare it to other software and find the best deal
The billing is simple. Choose a plan. Look at the cost. Pay that cost at the end of the month. That’s it.
Pay for only what you use. Having a fixed plan means that minor fluctuations in your case size don’t matter. But if there’s a significant change, prorated pricing keeps things fair. Say you use an 8 GB plan. And halfway through the month, you delete a bunch of files. So, now you have only 4.5 GB of data. You can now switch to a lower, 5 GB plan. And you’ll pay for only half a month on the 8 GB plan and half a month on the 5 GB plan.

Learn more how to get predictable eDiscovery pricing.

3. “I have to pay more to access any advanced features.”

Crafty eDiscovery providers often manipulate the pay-as-you-go pricing model even more. They charge a low per-GB storage rate (to reel you in) but then charge piecemeal for other essential features. Like:

Multiple user access: I.e., You want more than one user to be able to use the software (which you almost always do).
Processing your data
OCR for scanned documents
Producing documents
Tech support

With GoldFynch, there’s one price that covers everything. No extra features that have to be unlocked. You get the full power of GoldFynch with even your basic 3 GB case.

4. “The software is not intuitive, especially compared to other technology.”

Load the software like you do with email: No need to download and install anything. To start working, just go to the GoldFynch website and sign in. It’s like checking email.
Use it like your other favorite applications: GoldFynch is as easy to use as the simplest software out there. It’ll take less than 20 minutes to figure it out.
Move files around like in Windows: To upload files to GoldFynch, drag-and-drop them into your GoldFynch (i.e., internet) browser. GoldFynch handles all the complicated processing that follows.
Search like you do with Google: GoldFynch is your own private Google. To search the files you’ve uploaded, type your keywords into the search bar: You can make simple searches: That’s with single keywords (so, you’d search for ‘John’ to find documents referring to your newest IT guy - John.) But you can do highly specific searches too. Here, you’ll use keyword combinations to do an advanced search. With the right keywords, you can give a complex command like: Find all emails John Anderson sent Sally Nedry, which mention the Pfizer meeting. And which were sent before 2015.” And you’ll give this command using simple drop-down bars.
Leave the tech stuff to other people: GoldFynch takes Cloud-computing one step further by using the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Here, a vendor hosts and manages applications, making them available to clients via the internet. That’s why you don’t need to download and install GoldFynch. It runs in the Cloud and the GoldFynch team handles all the technical stuff. So you won’t need a dedicated IT department to help you troubleshoot problems. Plus, GoldFynch is designed, developed, and run by the same team, so technical support isn’t outsourced. Which means your tech issues get sorted out much faster. All you have to do is pay a monthly subscription and get on with being a lawyer.

GoldFynch has other cool features, too.

No set-up required. Since it runs in the Cloud, you use it through your web browser. So you can start working immediately. No installation. No sales calls or emails. Plus, you get a free, fully-functional trial case (0.5 GB of data and processing cap of 1 GB), without even needing to add a credit card.
You can work from anywhere. All you need is an internet connection.
It’s cost-effective. Just $27 a month for a 3 GB case. That’s significantly less-every month-than the nearest comparable software. And hundreds of dollars cheaper than many others. Note: GoldFynch can grow with your case and handle 100s of GB of data.

Want to find out more about GoldFynch?

For more about eDiscovery for small law firms, check out these articles.

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