3 Ways to Improve Cost Recovery

1. Establish a Process

The main reason companies fail to collect reimbursement is that they don’t have a good process in place to do it. Some departments don’t request payment at all. Others send an invoice along with responsive documents, but don’t follow up. As you might expect, the results aren’t great.

2. Gather Metrics

Particularly if your team handles a lot of routine subpoenas, it’s impractical to track time and expenses for each. Instead, for routine requests, consider calculating an average response cost and creating a flat fee schedule.

You might gather metrics over time and across matters, using that information to derive a per-response cost. An even simpler starting point is to ask your team: they likely can tell you how long it typically takes them to respond. With estimated hours per subpoena and number of subpoenas processed, you can arrive at an average time per response. Multiply that time by your fully burdened hourly cost for the employees doing the work. Then factor in any associated costs like shipping or external media.

To account for variation by scope or type of records requested, you might create a fee schedule (e.g., accounting for requests for multiple accounts, retrieval time from specific systems, or the need to pull records from multiple sources). Working from that average, you might, for example, set three fee levels based on how a subpoena compares to your average. Over time, continue to gather metrics and refine your assessments.

3. Send an Estimate

When you receive a subpoena, respond to confirm receipt, provide an estimated response time, and furnish a cost estimate. An estimate puts the issuer on notice that they should expect to reimburse your costs.