A famous old saying tells us “you get what you pay for.” It proves itself to be true over and over in our modern world, even in the world of electronic discovery. In fact, that was the very excuse offered by an e-discovery service provider when we identified and raised a series of mistakes it made. After discussing our concerns about a string of incidents marked by poor quality, it was suggested to us that, between competitive pricing, competing demands, and our high expectations, something had to give. In this case, the service provider failed to perform any quality control—at all—and blamed the mistakes on its low price tag, the implication being that our negotiation of lower pricing and deadline expectations led to the inevitable reduction (or in this case, elimination) of quality control measures.
Needless to say, that conversation left us speechless and incredibly concerned. It left us with a challenge we undoubtedly had to resolve. It also begged the question, is it true we received what we paid for?
