More Tools, More Problems: The Hidden Costs of Tool Overload in eDiscovery
Editor’s Note: The legal technology landscape is saturated with tools that promise efficiency but often deliver complexity. This article examines how fragmented eDiscovery platforms create more problems than they solve, and how HaystackID’s CoreFlex™ directly responds to this challenge by providing eDiscovery professionals with more control over their matters. Drawing from a recent HaystackID® webcast, we explore why “more tools” doesn’t mean “more control”—and how CoreFlex is enabling legal teams to work smarter, scale faster, and regain visibility without the tech sprawl.
More Tools, More Problems: The Hidden Costs of Tool Overload in eDiscovery
By HaystackID Staff
Legal teams today face a paradox: the more tools they adopt to manage growing data and complex workflows, the more fragmented and inefficient their operations become. Under pressure to reduce risk, manage costs, and accelerate timelines, many organizations have stitched together multiple point solutions—each solving a specific challenge, but collectively contributing to silos, manual work, and lack of visibility.
Simply put, the more tools you have, the more problems you have, from scattered data to delayed reporting to increased data privacy risks, not to mention the cost factor. According to Gartner, poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 million.
“Disconnected tools slow things down. They make it hard to know where your data is, what’s going on with your matter, and who’s doing what,” said Aaron Pribil, Director of Product Management at HaystackID, during a recent webcast, “Command, Control, and Clarity: The New Standard for eDiscovery.”
The Case for a Unified Interface
Within the legal profession, clients are asking for more visibility, faster access to analytics, and reduced dependence on outside teams for tasks like user setup and matter updates. Traditional eDiscovery systems often fall short, requiring legal professionals to manually jump between interfaces or request information. Legal teams don’t need more tools; they need an integrated platform that unifies operations, automates workflows, and delivers transparency without added complexity.
That’s exactly what our experts set out to build with CoreFlex. Designed in direct response to client needs, CoreFlex is a cloud-native, single-pane-of-glass interface that brings clarity to complex eDiscovery workflows. It gives users a unified experience across full-service and self-service matters, enabling legal teams to control data, users, and reporting from one place.
“One of the things that we decided when we built CoreFlex is that we would build it right on top of our existing system,” said Todd Haley, Executive Vice President of Operations at HaystackID, during the webcast. “Unlike some other providers that have built these systems as separate entities, we built it so that the matters you’re looking at, the data you’re looking at, are the exact same data and reports that our teams are looking at on the full power of the system that we have as well.”
With CoreFlex, the fragmented ecosystem becomes connected, automated, transparent, and adaptable to how modern legal teams need to work. One of the biggest drivers of this need is data volume. Data is growing faster than ever, and it’s not slowing down, with 90% of the world’s data being created in the last two years. The scale and speed of modern digital communication—from emails and chat logs to collaborative cloud platforms—have flooded legal teams with more information than ever before. This data is often unstructured, duplicated across systems, and spread across different repositories. Without a way to consolidate and visualize it, teams must rely on manual methods that slow review cycles and increase risk.
“Legal teams have too much data and not enough control,” Haley said. “CoreFlex allows you to analyze your data, both at the matter and portfolio levels, across all your matters. Whether self-serve or full-serve matters or different types of matters, CoreFlex gives control in multiple places.”
With integrations into Relativity Server, RelativityOne, and soon Slack and Microsoft 365®, CoreFlex is evolving into a platform-agnostic solution tailored to the flexibility modern legal teams require.
Why Scalability Matters, Now More Than Ever
Siloed tools don’t just create inefficiencies—they delay legal outcomes. When legal professionals are forced to switch between platforms for tasks like uploading data, managing users, or accessing reports, momentum is lost, and timelines stretch. This fragmented experience creates bottlenecks during crunch time, when speed and precision matter most.
“Time is of major importance in our marketplace,” said Pribil. “Having a scalable solution that can scale up and down based on unexpected workloads, i.e., fluctuations in workflows, is critical.”
CoreFlex gives users access to self-service and full-service matters through a unified interface. That means teams don’t have to wait on resources or duplicate processes, even if it’s 11:00 PM and a critical file needs to be uploaded.
“You can go into that full-service matter, upload that file, get it into the platform, and do what you need to do with it,” Pribil added. “You don’t have to pick up a phone or wait for resources around that. That’s the degree of flexibility we’re thinking about to help empower our clients, again giving them that command and control.”
Command, Control, and Clarity in Action
At the heart of CoreFlex is a commitment to delivering command, control, and clarity. These aren’t marketing slogans—they reflect real functionality designed to address real-world demands.
Command means having mastery over every aspect of your matters. Legal professionals can view real-time processing stages, audit data movement, and track metrics for individual custodians without leaving the platform.
“CoreFlex offers users a single pane of glass so they can quickly understand the status of a matter,” Pribil explained, from details on how the case was set up to ensuring the appropriate exclusion lists are input.
Control speaks to user access and permissions. Admins can add, disable, or manage users independently, eliminating the need for back-and-forth with vendor teams.
“The matters you’re looking at—the data you’re looking at—are the exact same data and reports our teams are seeing,” Haley added.
Clarity comes from the platform’s intuitive dashboards, built using Power BI. These visual tools let users interact with data and reporting in real time, identifying high-activity matters, archiving dormant projects, and flagging inactive users.
“Within our UI, we took a minimalist approach, meaning we want to make that single pane of glass simplistic, with the least amount of clicks possible for the maximum amount of information gain,” Pribil said.
What’s Next for CoreFlex
CoreFlex isn’t standing still. As demands on legal teams continue to evolve, so does the platform. Our team is actively expanding CoreFlex’s integrations and capabilities based on user feedback, emerging use cases, and shifting regulatory requirements. Haley emphasized during the webcast that clients shouldn’t need to understand every platform to get what they need from their data. That’s why upcoming additions like Slack integration and Microsoft 365 connectors are just the beginning.
Pribil echoed this product philosophy, noting that “we’re not handing you the keys to the kingdom and saying, ‘Good luck.’ Whether you know it or not, we’re there every step of the way.”
Our goal isn’t just to give you a powerful interface, but to create a framework where support, scale, and control coexist. By continuously enhancing CoreFlex with new features and deeper connectivity, we ensure legal professionals can stay in command, maintain control, and gain clarity, no matter how their caseload or data demands change over time. Learn how CoreFlex can help you streamline legal workflows, optimize operational efficiency, and enhance compliance.
About HaystackID®
HaystackID® solves complex data challenges related to legal, compliance, regulatory, and cyber requirements. Core offerings include Global Advisory, Cybersecurity, Core Intelligence AI™, and ReviewRight® Global Managed Review, supported by its unified CoreFlex™ service interface. Recognized globally by industry leaders, including Chambers, Gartner, IDC, and Legaltech News, HaystackID helps corporations and legal practices manage data gravity, where information demands action, and workflow gravity, where critical requirements demand coordinated expertise, delivering innovative solutions with a continual focus on security, privacy, and integrity. Learn more at HaystackID.com.
Assisted by GAI and LLM technologies.
SOURCE: HaystackID