Reduce e-discovery costs is no longer just a buzz-phrase, it’s a critical mandate for every litigation team. E-discovery can account for up to 70 % of a case’s budget when left unchecked, but many of those expenses are avoidable. By identifying inefficiencies early and implementing targeted best practices, legal teams can reduce e-discovery costs while maintaining defensibility and regulatory compliance.
Preservation Strategies to Reduce E-Discovery Costs
One of the biggest drivers of cost is over-preservation. When you preserve every possible data source, storage fees skyrocket and review volumes balloon. To reduce e-discovery costs, focus your preservation efforts only on key custodians, narrow date ranges, and exclude duplicates and clearly irrelevant data. Implement precise legal holds and data maps so you preserve just what you need—and cut storage and processing fees from the outset.
How Targeted Collection Helps Reduce E-Discovery Costs
Once preservation is in place, the next major cost driver is data collection. Many legal teams still default to collecting as much data as possible upfront, believing it’s better to have too much than too little. In reality, collecting excessive data increases costs at every stage—processing, hosting, and review.
Targeted collection methods reduce this burden. Instead of pulling entire email inboxes or massive network shares, legal teams should focus on custodians and timeframes that truly matter. Using keyword filtering and early case assessment tools before full collection or database hosting can dramatically shrink the volume of data that moves through the discovery pipeline. The less data collected, the lower the costs of processing and review.
Using AI to Reduce E-Discovery Costs in Document Review
Review is by far the most expensive phase of e-discovery. Traditionally, legal teams have relied on large-scale manual review, where attorneys go through documents one by one. Not only is this approach slow, but it’s also costly.
Technology-assisted review (TAR), AI-driven classification, and email threading can dramatically reduce the number of documents that require human review. TAR prioritizes the most relevant documents first, allowing teams to focus their efforts where it matters most. Email threading groups related conversations together, preventing reviewers from reading the same messages repeatedly. AI tools can flag privileged, sensitive, or irrelevant documents faster and more accurately than manual methods alone. By embracing automation, legal teams can reduce review costs without sacrificing quality.
Standardize ESI Protocols to Avoid Unnecessary Disputes
Discovery disputes are a hidden but significant cost driver. When parties fail to agree upfront on metadata, production formats, or privilege treatment, they often end up in costly motion practice or re-doing productions to meet opposing counsel’s demands.
A well-drafted, standardized ESI Protocol eliminates ambiguity and reduces the likelihood of discovery fights. Clearly defining metadata fields, production formats, deduplication rules, and redaction procedures at the beginning of a case prevents confusion later. When expectations are set upfront, legal teams spend less time negotiating or fixing issues after documents have already been produced.
Optimize Privilege Logging to Avoid Excessive Costs
Privilege review and logging are among the most tedious and expensive parts of e-discovery. Reviewing every potentially privileged document and creating a detailed log for each one takes enormous amounts of time, especially in large cases.
Rather than logging every privileged document individually, legal teams should use categorical privilege logs whenever possible. Grouping documents by category can save hours of manual work while still meeting discovery obligations. Using AI to detect, categorize privileged content, and draft privilege log descriptions should a categorical log not be an available option, can further reduce the time attorneys spend reviewing and logging documents.
Reduce Hosting and Storage Costs by Defensibly Deleting Unnecessary Data
Data storage may seem like a minor cost, but in large-scale litigation, hosting fees add up quickly. Many legal teams keep massive amounts of discovery data long after it’s needed, leading to ongoing expenses that could be avoided with better data management.
Setting clear retention policies for discovery data can help control storage costs. Once a case concludes, legal teams should identify what data must be retained for compliance or appeal purposes and defensibly delete anything that is no longer necessary. Many e-discovery vendors charge monthly or annual fees based on data volume, so reducing storage size can result in significant long-term savings.
A Proactive Approach to E-Discovery Saves Time and Money
E-discovery doesn’t have to drain your litigation budget. By refining preservation strategies, reducing data volumes, embracing automation, standardizing protocols, optimizing privilege logging, and managing storage costs, legal teams can dramatically cut expenses while maintaining defensibility.
The firms and corporate legal teams that take a proactive approach to discovery are not only saving money. They’re also reducing risk, improving efficiency, and ensuring that litigation resources are focused where they matter most. With the right strategies in place, e-discovery becomes a streamlined, manageable process instead of an overwhelming financial burden.
