The firm’s previous solution, NetDocuments, was becoming a burden. The firm was locked into a tiered storage system, incurring significant costs — $6,000 to $8,000 per month — for exceeding their allotted storage space. "We were getting hit with 'luxury taxes' on our storage like crazy," said Denney Fifield, the firm's Director of Technology Services, highlighting the frustration with NetDocuments’ pricing structure.
“You can’t say you have a 7% growth on data anymore. It’s more like 30% — or even 50%, Everybody’s got a 4K camera in their pocket. They’re recording more and more — and it is evidence. You have to store it somewhere”
Beyond the financial strain, NetDocuments' limitations were hindering productivity. The system lacked features like calendaring, collaboration tools, and task management. The firm tried to fill the gaps by using Outlook as a practice management system, but lawyers and paralegals complained it was inefficient.
To reduce storage surcharges, the firm stored large video and audio files in different repositories, but scattered information across different systems made searching for critical documents a time-consuming task. "Our attorneys charge $400 an hour," explained Fifield. "If they have to spend ten minutes looking for something, they just lost $66 in unbilled time."
Strong & Hanni discovered Docs by Filevine, a cloud-based legal document management system designed specifically for the needs of law firms.