The Hidden Costs of Legacy eDiscovery and How Matey AI Changes the Game

The Hidden Costs of Legacy eDiscovery and How Matey AI Changes the Game

Overview

For years, criminal defense attorneys have been forced to choose between expensive legacy eDiscovery platforms and inefficient manual review methods. Traditional tools, built for the civil litigation market, were never designed with the needs of criminal defense teams in mind. As a result, attorneys and investigators face not only overwhelming data but also staggering per-gigabyte costs that eat away at budgets, often forcing difficult trade-offs between cost and thoroughness.

Matey AI is rewriting that equation. By combining cost-effective hosting with AI-powered discovery review, Matey enables defense teams to save thousands while working smarter and faster.

The Problem with Legacy eDiscovery Pricing

Traditional eDiscovery platforms rely on a “per GB, per month” pricing model. Every gigabyte of data collected, processed, and hosted adds up quickly, especially in cases involving large volumes of evidence, think years of emails, surveillance footage, phone dumps, or forensic imaging.

• The Price Barrier: Even modest criminal investigations can rack up hosting costs in the tens of thousands of dollars.
  
  
• Scope vs. Budget: Defense teams are incentivized to limit the amount of data they review due to budget constraints, often at the risk of missing critical evidence.
  
  
• The Clock Is Always Ticking: Monthly hosting fees create pressure to rush investigations, increasing the chance of errors or missed connections.
  
  

For smaller firms, public defenders, or state-appointed counsel, these costs are simply unsustainable.

The Matey AI Advantage: Cost-Effective, Powerful, and Flexible

Matey AI eliminates the financial bottleneck of legacy systems by offering unlimited data hosting with zero per-GB fees. When data is uploaded to Matey:

1. Processing Is Free: No hidden costs for data preparation or ingestion.
   
   
2. Hosting Is Unlimited: No monthly hosting fees, regardless of the amount of data.
   
   
3. Analysis Is Instant: Advanced AI capabilities are built into the platform, no add-ons, no “bolt-on AI” costs.
   
   

Example: A corporate investigation with 1 TB of data could easily surpass $50,000 in legacy platform hosting fees over the life of the case. Matey processes and hosts that same data without charging a single dollar beyond the base platform cost.

Beyond Cost: Faster, Smarter Review

Cost savings are only part of the story. Matey’s AI-first architecture is built to accelerate review and analysis:

• Ask AI Anything: Instead of searching through files with Boolean strings, attorneys can ask plain-language questions like, “Who was aware of the kickback scheme in 2022?” and receive evidence-cited answers.
  
  
• Automatic Timelines: Matey can generate event chronologies in seconds, enabling attorneys to quickly identify critical moments.
  
  
• Entity Mapping: Individuals, companies, and events are automatically connected, creating an interactive map of relationships that reveals hidden links.
  
  

These features aren’t just faster; they help attorneys uncover insights that would otherwise remain buried in gigabytes of evidence.

Why Cost and Speed Matter

Time is one of the most precious resources for any criminal defense attorney. Every hour spent struggling with slow, costly tools is an hour that could be devoted to strategy, client communication, or case-building. Matey AI provides both the financial and operational flexibility needed to dig deep into evidence without being hampered by unnecessary costs.

Looking Ahead

The legal landscape is shifting. AI-powered platforms like Matey are no longer “nice-to-have”, they are becoming essential for competitive, effective defense work. By cutting hosting costs and accelerating discovery review, Matey ensures that attorneys have both the time and the resources to build the strongest defense possible.

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