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Litigation Support and the Challenge of Identifying Inactive Relativity Cases

Written by CaseFlow Team | Jun 18, 2025 1:54:53 AM

Walk into the litigation support departments of multiple major law firms, and you’ll probably find the same silent struggle taking place behind the scenes: an avalanche of active and inactive Relativity workspaces mounting uncontrollably, with no process in place for managing them. It’s not just messy. It’s costly, time consuming, and when not countered, dangerous.

Some are clearly still open, while others have been inactive for months, but without centralized visibility into workspace activity, you’re left guessing which is which. The more those guesses go unchallenged, the more your company incurs unnecessary storage costs, wasted time, and compliance risk.

This isn’t merely a matter of IT housekeeping, though. For litigation support pros, it’s central to the job: You need to organize, secure, and access relevant case data without dropping a fortune or putting that data at risk. However, far too many firms have been left to deal with manual processes that haven’t kept pace with the volume of data that they now manage.

The real issue is that manual following just won’t cut it anymore; the tool is too small for the job now. Fortunately, there’s a better way.

Why Identifying Inactive Relativity Cases Is So Painful

If you’ve ever been asked, “Is this workspace still in use?” and had to spend an hour pulling logs, messaging attorneys, and checking shared spreadsheets just to answer, you already know this pain.

Here’s what daily reality looks like:

  • No built-in visibility: Relativity doesn’t automatically show you which cases are active, paused, or abandoned.
  • Manual audits: You are forced to export workspace reports, check activity logs, and email stakeholders, case by case.
  • Stakeholder friction: Attorneys move on, review teams change priorities, and clients forget to close the loop. You’re left chasing status updates.
  • Reporting overload: Leadership wants a report, but what exactly do you report? Without clarity, it’s just educated guesses and long hours reconciling usage data.

Now multiply that across hundreds of workspaces, and it’s clear why many firms start pushing this work into “clean-up season” during Q4 or after fiscal deadlines. But waiting has consequences:

  • Inactive data remains live and billable.
  • Storage costs creep upward with no business return.
  • Dormant workspaces become unsecured liabilities, with outdated access permissions or unmonitored PII sitting idle.

Let’s say that your team is responsible for 250 Relativity workspaces spread across multiple departments. Identifying the inactive ones manually could take hours a month, especially if stakeholders are slow to respond, and you still may not be fully confident in the outcome.

The Limits of Memory, Spreadsheets, and Scheduled Reports

Litigation support professionals are known for finding creative workarounds, such as internal trackers, color-coded Google Sheets, and weekly check-ins. Sometimes, even shared naming conventions like “Z-Archive-Candidate” are used to mark spaces for review.

It works—until it doesn’t. These stopgap solutions fall apart under the weight of scale and speed. You can’t rely on memory or shared docs when you’re managing data for dozens of cases across multiple teams under tight timelines. These systems also:

  • Don’t scale as the number of workspaces grows
  • Get outdated quickly, especially when ownership shifts or attorneys rotate
  • Rely on individual memory, which is always a risk
  • Fails to display real-time usage, resulting in decisions based on outdated information

Even scheduled Relativity reports won’t help much. A monthly activity export might show a login, but was that a real case update, or is someone simply checking on something? Reports don’t state whether the workspace is still part of an active Matter or just sitting in limbo.

There’s also no unified dashboard where you can quickly answer these questions:

  • When was this workspace last active?
  • Is there any data growth or recent review activity?
  • Are there unresolved review batches?
  • What’s the storage footprint?

Without this kind of transparency, litigation support teams are stuck working reactively when they need to be operating proactively.

CaseFlow: A Smarter Way to Identify Inactive Relativity Workspaces

CaseFlow was designed with one goal: for users to be able to truly see their Relativity environment, with the ability to minimize manual interaction (as much as possible).

But instead of offering guesses, you’re getting live answers. You won’t be pulling reports that don’t tell the whole story; you get real insights. You’re not running people down either; you’re getting strong signals.

CaseFlow integrates directly with your Relativity environment, actively monitoring workspace activity. It flags cases that appear to be inactive before they blow up, and it does so with data, not assumptions.

Here’s what it tracks:

  • Last login and user interaction
  • Review activity (or the lack thereof)
  • Data growth trends
  • Workspace age and storage usage
  • Open or unresolved workflows

All of it comes together on a nice, graphical dashboard designed especially for people on litigation support teams who can’t afford to waste time. You can analyze your space within minutes, rank it according to age or activity level, and choose to prioritize the cases that you wish to archive, dismiss, or investigate.

It also introduces alerts and workflow automation because archiving doesn't have to be a manual checklist. You’ll know which cases are ripe, those that should go, and how much data you’re saving as you do it—in real time.

So, instead of having to send five follow-up emails begging for a status check and remembering whom to send them to, you get a prompt on a dashboard that basically says, "This workspace had zero user activity in ninety days, and the data size hasn't grown.”

What Litigation Support Teams Gain From CaseFlow

Once CaseFlow is in place, the shift is immediate. You’re no longer managing data manually—you’re managing strategy. Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Time Saved

You will no longer be spending days each quarter pulling logs and cross-checking usage. CaseFlow continuously monitors and delivers insights instantly.

Smarter Storage Decisions

Archive inactive cases earlier, reduce unnecessary billable storage, and free up capacity for active matters without risking compliance.

Stronger Reporting

Do you need to demonstrate leadership in how your team contributes to cost control? Now you’ve got the data to back it up. For example: “We’ve archived 180GB of inactive data in Q1, cutting our storage cost by 14%.”

Better Collaboration

Attorneys and review teams get clear guidance, and internal stakeholders trust your recommendations. After all, you’re not just supporting litigation—you’re also driving clarity.

More Strategic Focus

With routine monitoring off your plate, you can invest more energy into what matters most: supporting trial teams, streamlining workflows, and proactively improving your litigation systems.

Let the System Handle the Monitoring So You Can Focus on the Work That Matters

The truth is that manual methods are no longer enough to manage the volume and complexity of Relativity data in large law firms. Identifying inactive cases through spreadsheets and gut instinct is slow, unreliable, and increasingly expensive.

CaseFlow changes that. It gives litigation support pros a clear, real-time view into their entire workspace environment so they can act quickly, confidently, and efficiently. You don’t need more reports—you need better visibility, and this service delivers it automatically.

So, are you ready to take back control of your Relativity environment? Let CaseFlow handle the monitoring so you can focus on litigation support that actually moves the firm forward.

Ready to take control of your Relativity data lifecycle and eliminate unnecessary costs and wasted time? CaseFlow provides the automation that you need to proactively manage your Relativity storage, seamlessly transitioning cases through Repository, Cold Storage, and Archive based on your specific requirements. Don't let manual processes bog you down; see how CaseFlow can save your law firm time and money. Contact us today, and discover the power of automated Relativity data lifecycle management.