Maximize Revenue With Efficient Insight-Driven Data Storage From Relativity

Why does storage strategy affect revenue in large law firms? When data lives in the wrong place, you pay more than you should and wait longer than you need to bill for work already done.

The fix is a clear storage lifecycle inside RelativityOne, backed by simple weekly habits and a few features that make waste easy to spot. What follows is how to turn that idea into a working plan that your litigation support team and leaders can run together.

Map the Money Trail to Maximize Revenue

Unmanaged storage hurts the bottom line in three ways that feed each other:

1. First, hosting bills climb when inactive Matters sit in full Review workspaces for months. Those workspaces are billed at a higher rate, and you end up paying for capacity that no one is using.
2. Second, larger datasets slow reviewers. Redundant emails and near-duplicate files keep returning to the queue, so throughput drops and QC take longer.
3. Third, invoices go out later. If first decisions and productions slip, so does cash flow.

The way out is practical, not theoretical. Reduce what you store, make usage trends visible, and match each workspace to the proper storage lane.

When you do those three things together, review gets faster, hosting levels out, and your team sends invoices sooner. That is how smart storage choices help you maximize revenue without pushing people to work longer hours.

Here’s what to look for on day one:

• Workspaces with no reviewer activity in the last thirty to sixty days
• Review workspaces that could be converted to a Repository
• Staging locations that keep hitting monthly peak limits

These are quick wins. If you address them first, you create momentum and free headroom in your subscription right away.

Build an Insight Layer: Know What You Store, Where, and Why

You cannot fix what you cannot see. Set a weekly “no-surprises” check that takes fifteen minutes and gives leaders a clear view of spend and growth.

Use Cost Explorer to see billing and usage trends and estimate charges before the month's end. Look for spikes by client or workspace, and ask why they happened. A short review every Monday keeps you in control.

Turn on Usage Reports to attribute consumption to client, Matter, and workspace. This protects the scope on fixed-fee Matters and supports internal chargebacks on time-and-materials work.

Track a small set of metrics so the team actually uses them:

• Gigabytes by workspace
• Week-over-week GB growth
• Staging volume against your limit
• Cost per active Matter

Post a one-page dashboard that flags green, yellow, or red. Green means “fine,” yellow means “take a look,” and red means “action this week.” If you want the insight layer to run itself, connect your routine to CaseFlow. It monitors your Relativity instance, flags inactive Matters based on your rules, and runs lifecycle moves on schedule so your savings stick.

Right-Tier Your Data With RelativityOne Storage Options to Maximize Revenue

Relativity gives you several storage lanes, each with a purpose and a price. Your job is to keep data in the cheapest lane that still fits the case.

• Staging is a temporary landing zone for data that you have not yet processed and for ARM archives that you plan to restore. Since Staging is billed on monthly peak usage, do a quick cleanup each week, so large loads do not sit there and trigger overages.
• Repository is best for early case assessment. Process and cull here, then push only focused sets into Review. You can also convert quiet Review workspaces to Repository ones in order to lower costs while preserving coding decisions for future Matters.
• Review is for active, ongoing work. If no one is reviewing, move the workspace out of this lane. Leaving inactive data in Review increases your spend and slows down your team.
• Cold Storage holds inactive cases for an extended period and enables you to bring them back online quickly when needed. From here, you can archive straight to ARM without returning the workspace to an active state, which cuts steps.
• The ARM archives package up workspaces for long-term retention. You can then move these to lower-cost storage, such as Azure Blob or AWS S3, for further savings.

A simple policy keeps everyone aligned:

• After thirty days without review activity, move the workspace to Cold Storage.
• After 120 days with no change or legal hold, archive with ARM.
• If a legal hold exists, pause the timer and record the reason.

Set retrieval expectations in client communications so there are no surprises about timing or cost when a Matter needs to be revisited. If you prefer automation, CaseFlow can watch for inactivity, notify stakeholders, and execute moves or archives on your schedule. That steady discipline is how a storage lifecycle helps you maximize revenue across quarters, not just this month.

Shrink What You Need to Store and Review

The fastest way to lower costs is to cut the pile that your team has to read. Two Relativity analytics features make an immediate difference, and reviewers will feel the relief right away:

• Email Threading finds the few messages that carry the full story of a conversation. Turn on threading, switch your view to the inclusive set, and check the summary chart to see how many messages dropped out. You keep the context, lose the repeats, and move faster through each mailbox.
• Textual Near-Duplicate Identification groups look-alike documents, enabling the process to flow in a straight line. Start by coding the lead document in a cluster, then move through its neighbors while the details are fresh.

Run near-dupes on emails separately when needed so your clusters stay clean and easy to scan. This simple change eliminates back-and-forth, reduces QC overturns, and helps the team finish earlier without cutting corners.

Use Active Learning and Review Center to Reduce Reviewable Volume

Large or urgent Matters benefit from Active Learning right at the start. The model ranks likely relevant items, so your team sees the best material first and gets to the first decisions sooner. Other features include:

• Quick start: Pull a richness sample, create the project, and monitor the learning curve and throughput in the Review Center. Track queue coverage each day so you know where work is piling up.
• Defensibility: Run elusion testing and project validation at key milestones, and keep the reports with the case file.

Fewer documents reviewed means fewer hosting hours and faster productions, which shortens the time to invoice and supports your revenue targets.

Lower Your SQL Footprint and Speed Up Searches With Data Grid

Long text and audit data can slow SQL and search performance. Relativity’s Data Grid stores that content in an elastic back-end designed for scale. You keep fewer copies, indexes stay healthy, and reviewers won’t have to wait as long for results.

Use the Data Grid Text Migration app to move fields in a controlled way and plan migrations per workspace so you don’t break saved searches or dashboards.

Know the Operational Playbooks That Raise Margins

Playbooks turn good habits into a routine that the whole team can follow. They remove guesswork, speed up handoffs, and keep savings from slipping when things get busy. Here is a simple set that you can roll out and actually keep.

Intake and Preservation

Start strong so you do less work later. Use a short, targeted collection checklist. Collect what you need, not everything that you can find:

• List the must-have sources for the Matter.
• Map likely custodians and systems early.
• Set clear exclusion rules with counsel, and write them down.

When intake is clean, hosting drops and review moves faster.

Analytics Runbook

Give reviewers the same setup every time so results are consistent:

• Lock in Email Threading settings and use inclusive-only views.
• Set near-duplicate thresholds that fit your data.
• Batch by threads or clusters to cut context switching.

Save this runbook where every PM can find it. Keep the version history so updates are easy to track.

Active Learning Quick Start

Make it simple to launch and monitor projects:

• Spell out project creation, reviewer queues, daily checks, and validation steps.
• Keep it to one page and link to the official guide for deeper questions.

A tight quick start helps new reviewers get productive on day one.

Storage Lifecycle SOP

Show the exact path that data should take once review slows down:

• Define the move from Active Review to Cold Storage, then to ARM.
• Add checklists for privilege, retention, and client sign-off.
• Name who approves each step, who runs the jobs, and where confirmations live.

With this SOP, admins do not need a meeting to know what to do next.

Financial Model: Connect Storage Decisions to Revenue

Leaders want the story in numbers that they can act on. Use a one-page rollup each month to show:

• Storage trimmed by X% compared to baseline
• Review hours per thousand documents, trending down
• Hosting curve flattening or falling for inactive Matters
• Days' sales outstanding improving as productions ship sooner

Anchor those numbers in Cost Explorer screens and Usage Reports so the story is verifiable. Bring the rollup to budget reviews and fee talks. When partners see how usage drives spend, it becomes easy to get approvals to move a workspace to Cold Storage or to archive with ARM.

These choices free up capacity for higher-value work and shorten the path from review to invoice, helping you maximize revenue without changing your staffing model.

A Thirty-Day Implementation Plan to Maximize Revenue

You don’t need a huge project plan to make progress. You need four focused weeks and a simple cadence.

Week 1: Baseline and First Reduction

• Open Cost Explorer and Usage Reports, capture a snapshot, and flag the ten fastest-growing workspaces.
• On one large Matter, run Email Threading and Near-Dupes, and switch reviewers to inclusive-only plus clusters.
• Record the before-and-after document counts and reviewer throughput so you can show an early win.

Week 2: Active Learning Pilot

• Launch an Active Learning project on that same Matter, and track throughput and queue coverage daily in the Review Center.
• Share a short internal note at week’s end with the learning curve, the documents reviewed, and the time saved.

Week 3: Lifecycle Moves

• Move inactive workspaces to Cold Storage, and line up candidates for ARM based on your 120-day rule.
• Note which archives should be moved to lower-cost cloud storage after export, and schedule those transfers.

Week 4: Sustain and Report

• Migrate long text to Data Grid where it makes sense, focusing on heavy-search workspaces.
• Publish a two-page savings report, refresh your dashboard, and lock in the weekly “no-surprises” ritual.

If you want automation from here, configure monitoring and lifecycle moves in CaseFlow so the policy continues to hold during busy periods.

Risk, Compliance, and Client Communication

Protect the record first. Keep clear audit trails for every storage move, and file your validation reports for analytics and Active Learning with the case materials. If someone asks what changed and when, you can show it in seconds.

Share a short, client-safe note that explains your storage lifecycle in plain words: what Cold Storage is, how long a restore usually takes, and how ARM archives are handled. Setting expectations early avoids tense calls later and helps your team reopen a Matter fast when needed.

Start small and keep going. This week, run your “no-surprises” check, turn on Usage Reports, and move one inactive workspace to Cold Storage. Measure the change in gigabytes and in reviewer cycle time. Next week, line up your first ARM archive and record the approval.

These small steps build a habit that protects margin, speeds billing, and helps you maximize revenue with the team that you already trust.

Stop letting inefficient processes drain your firm's profitability. Every hour spent on manual case management and disorganized workflows is an hour that could be spent generating revenue. Your clients deserve better, and so does your bottom line. CaseFlow delivers streamlined case management, automated workflows, and real-time insights that free your team to focus on what matters most: practicing law profitably. Ready to drive real efficiency and savings? Discover how CaseFlow can transform your firm's operations.