When Jason Molder left a large firm to start his own practice, his colleagues warned him that his plan to start his own boutique law firm was going to be rough. They told him, you’re not going to have the technology, infrastructure, and expensive software that a large law firm can support.
A few years later, Swimmer & Molder, PL is a thriving law firm serving the construction, eDiscovery, information technology, and community association industries in South Florida. He may have some headaches keeping a growing business running, but legal technology is not one of them.
At Nextpoint, we salute the thousands of lawyers who strike out to form their own solo or small firm. We believe that small firms can not only compete with Big Law, but can be more nimble and adaptable for their clients. Not long after launching his firm, Jason Molder had the legal technology thing figured out.
To manage electronic evidence, one of the first things he did was set up a Nextpoint account to manage the firm’s eDiscovery case load. It’s technology on par with that used at his old law firm, and cost him no licensing fees, no maintenance costs, and no overhead. Even more importantly, he was able to manage complex cases quickly and at a minimum cost.
The Challenge: Review a large document collection with a small team and limited budget.
Jason has used Nextpoint on a number of cases, including a complex construction defect case with multiple defendants producing records. In that case, he had a small-scale production of paper and digital records from multiple defendants. The data included paper records scanned to PDF, Outlook PST files, and Word and Excel files from personal computers.
Using Discovery Cloud’s search and sort functionality to cull the information, almost a million pages were reviewed in advance of mediation and whittled down to about 50,000 potentially relevant documents. The review was accomplished by three attorneys working part-time over the course of a few months.
Cost: Total cost to client (not including attorneys’ fees) approximately $3,000
The Challenge: Review thousands of pages in just 72 hours.
Jason also used Discovery Cloud in a bid protest with an incredibly tight deadline. The case involved a small scale production from a municipality – roughly 2,000 pages related to a claim worth millions. The entire review was accomplished in less than two days by a single attorney. “The problem was that we had to review and prepare a brief within 72 hours to meet the filing deadline,” says Jason. “Using the searching, sorting, and tagging functionality built into Discovery Cloud, we were able to make that deadline and in the end we billed just $25 to the client for technology costs.”
Cost: Total technology cost to client: $25
The Small Firm eDiscovery Advantage
Jason says that for fast moving, complex litigation, Nextpoint’s cloud-based software delivers advanced review features with more flexibility, easier management, and a much lower cost of ownership than other competing solutions. “I rely on Nextpoint to deliver world-class technology without the overhead and costs you normally expect from litigation software,” says Molder. “This is a competitive market, and the Nextpoint platform helps us deliver the highest level of service for a fraction of the cost.” As an eDiscovery consultant offering outside e-discovery counsel to other law firms, Jason even recommends Nextpoint to his own clients.
Discovery Cloud is a native, cloud-based application, meaning Swimmer & Molder doesn’t need to invest in expensive in-house hardware and software databases to manage their caseload. There is no software to buy, no licenses to maintain, and no ongoing IT costs. When a matter comes in, the Swimmer & Molder team simply begins uploading and reviewing evidence. The firm only pays for the service it needs and passes those savings on to the client.
Big Law as well as solo and small firm eDiscovery attorneys rely on Nextpoint for affordable, effective eDiscovery software. You can download our free whitepaper on eDiscovery for small firms to help you start any discovery matter. And check out a Nextpoint demo to find out why law firms of all sizes are turning to Nextpoint to manage their complex litigation.
