Modus: Bringing to Light the Compelling Story of Data

Steven Horan, Executive Chairman & CEO

Based in Washington D.C, Modus has been catering to the eDiscovery needs of around 400 law firms and 170 corporate clients since its inception. In particular, it is widely known for providing business intelligence services, which enhances better communication between people, processes, and technologies or products of an enterprise. The motive is achieved by Modus’s suite of services and solutions, which also includes consulting, managed services, and Modus 4C ECA, apart from eDiscovery.

eDiscovery Reporting, Data Collection and Forensics, eDiscovery Processing, Early Case Assessment, eDiscovery Production, and providing hosting options are the various services Modus offers in this domain. Reporting is a pivotal part of eDiscovery which is a measure of a firm’s efficiency. The metrics involved in tracking an enterprise’s progress are Task Type and Frequency, Matter Type and Frequency, Time and Cost, Case Management as well as Quality Control. Data collection for legal studies is another set of services which Modus provides to its clients. Precisely, this discipline assists customers with Evidence Identification, Data Harvesting & Forensic Collection, Forensic Imaging, Preservation, Analysis as well as Live & Targeted Data Acquisitions. In addition, Modus also provides a suite of eDiscovery Processing services which relieves its clients from hassles of processing large chunks of data which may possess different properties and formats.

According to Steven Horan, Executive Chairman and CEO of Modus, utilizing Amazon’s S3 cloud platform was probably one of the smartest decisions made by Modus in recent times, since it offers several advantages.

The movement towards cloud is becoming much more accepted, the legal profession as a whole, is not as progressive on the technology front as other industries, but there’s clearly a positive change

Primarily, it relieved Modus from the concern of upgrading its hardware resources frequently to accommodate massive volumes of data. The management of Modus believes that relying on Amazon has given the organization an advantage over many of its competitors in the market, who must upgrade their data centers frequently. Since data storage and security are integral aspects of eDiscovery, leveraging the benefits of Amazon’s cloud services seemed to be an optimal solution for Modus. Since the data volumes of clients are continually expanding, scalability and cost often become critical challenges, which Amazon’s S3 manages effortlessly. Tasks that would have probably consumed a little more than three months with Modus’s old infrastructure get accomplished in a matter of a day, thanks to Amazon’s sophistication. Thus, relying on Amazon helps Modus provide its clients services that are agile and flexible to changes.

Also, Amazon is widely considered to be much secure as compared to most private cloud service providers in the market. Apart from its storage and backup facilities, being powered by Amazon has helped Modus encapsulate data from threats and other vulnerabilities plaguing many enterprises. Horan indicates that “there is no eDiscovery Company that is going to out-invest Amazon with respect to scalability and security.

Talking about the work culture at Modus, Steven claims that there has been a sea of change in the company’s style of functioning in the last twelve months. Transparency and accountability among employees have improved significantly in recent times, resulting in increased efficiency. There is a more team-orientated mindset and working environment.

The firm intends to upgrade shortly and provide its clients advanced searching, advanced analytics, and expanded data capabilities.

“The movement towards cloud is becoming much more accepted, the legal profession as a whole, is not as progressive on the technology front as other industries, but there’s clearly a positive change. The research is showing with an overwhelming amount of evidence that a well-done cloud like Amazon is a more secure environment than the private clouds that exist out there. Our Industry is about access, relevance, and cost, and our Amazon solution enables us to deliver on those critical expectations,” says Horan, about the trend of traditional businesses embracing eDiscovery and cloud technology in general.