Many small to mid-sized law firms see eDiscovery technology as a vague and expensive - but “necessary” cost - of practicing law.  A pain to set up, but nothing a copy of Concordance and IPRO cannot solve.  And while those tools work well, many firms do not think about the true cost of managing your own eDiscovery technology.

Here are some examples of costs you need to prepare for to do eDiscovery right.

• Network Storage
• Bandwidth
• Extra Servers
• Remote Access
• Litigation Support Experts
• ‘Round the Clock Service

For many firms, managing eDiscovery in-house is the right call.  It becomes part of the firm’s core competency and the technology headaches are something the attorneys embrace.  For all the other firms, there is a big trend to leverage third parties to deal with eDiscovery technology.  A reasonable expense passed on to clients with a reasonable mark-up and the law firm continues to focus on its core competency: practicing law.

What approach works well for you?