Consider all-in costs of a vendor’s solution

When evaluating legal service providers, it is important to consider the all-in cost, not just the fees paid to the service provider itself. Less-expensive software that will cause a lot of work for the IT operation may end up costing more. (RWM – See my post of April 7, 2006: the full cost of a new matter management system should include conversion of data.)

As another example, some e-discovery companies are starting to focus on reducing the number of documents that must be reviewed for responsiveness and privilege. Since the review phase usually exceeds the cost of e-discovery, a more expensive technological solution may reduce overall costs tremendously. [Brad Blickstein, Blickstein Group, on legal service providers]