Real Archives. Real Deal Mechanics.
Not sure whether your organization's data qualifies? Choose a company below to see the sample they shared first, what the full dataset contained, why it was valuable, and how the deal was executed and paid.
Anonymized case studies. Company names and identifying details have been changed to protect client confidentiality. Each profile is a composite of several engagements and typical deals in that industry; payout figures are illustrative.
Case Studies
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Select a company to see its full case study.
- Read the Aster Cloud case study
- Read the Redwood Peak Partners case study
- Read the Hawthorne & Vale LLP case study
- Read the Crescent Health Partners case study
- Read the Helios Ridge Energy case study
Hawthorne & Vale LLP · Legal: Commercial law firm with 16 years of full matter histories, from intake and research to redlines, depositions, and outcomes.
Hawthorne & Vale LLP
Commercial law firm with 16 years of full matter histories, from intake and research to redlines, depositions, and outcomes.
- Scale
- 126 employees · $46M annual revenue
- Archive span
- 16 years
- Seller payout
- ~$780K
- Time to payout
- 31 days
01 · Company Profile
1 — Company Profile
Overview
Hawthorne & Vale LLP — Commercial law firm. Founded 2008. The valuable unit was the full matter history rather than isolated briefs: client intake, research, drafts, redlines, partner comments, correspondence, discovery, deposition transcripts, billing, and matter outcomes.
Scale
126 employees · $46M annual revenue. Archive: 16 years · 9.1 TB raw · 5.6M documents.
02 · Data Profile
2 — Data Profile & Valuation Drivers
Initial Sample Data
Two closed commercial matters with privilege-screened intake metadata, research, redlines, a deposition excerpt, a production log, billing metadata, and an outcome summary. Approx. 3.1 GB sample.
Full Dataset Delivered
| Source | History | Scale | Format | Approx. size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matter system | 16y | 7,800 matters | DB/CSV | 22 GB |
| Contracts | 16y | 620K docs | DOCX/PDF | 1.8 TB |
| Research | 16y | 84K docs | DOCX/PDF | 210 GB |
| Depositions | 15y | 31K | PDF/TXT | 320 GB |
| Discovery | 14y | 1.2M recs | CSV | 18 GB |
| Client comms | 15y | 2.8M msgs | MBOX | 1.1 TB |
| Draft history | 13y | 940K vers. | Mixed | 2.4 TB |
Scroll sideways to see all columns.
Also included: billing / WIP metadata (16 years). Metadata profile: identity mapping high, revision history preserved, timestamps normalized, attachments linked, sensitive data filtered.
Valuation Rationale
Why this company was interesting
Complete matter histories captured professional work across research, drafting, revision, negotiation, and litigation. Rights and privilege review materially reduced the usable corpus.
What drove value
Matter-level linkage, revisions, partner feedback, research-to-draft trajectories, transcripts, and outcomes. Privilege and rights screening reduced the usable volume.
Data categories and why each was useful
- Matter files · 7,800 mattersend-to-end legal work
- Contracts / redlines · 620K docsrevision reasoning
- Research memos · 84K docsexpert analysis
- Depositions · 31K transcriptsquestion / answer
- Discovery logs · 1.2M recordsevidence workflows
- Client correspondence · 2.8M msgscontext / decisions
- Billing / WIP · 16 yearswork effort metadata
- Draft history · 940K versionsedit trajectories
What would have made this archive weaker
Public filings alone; final contracts with no drafts; unresolved privilege or ownership; or isolated transcripts with no matter context.
03 · Deal Execution
3 — Execution, Deal Structure & Economics
Timeline
From sample submission to payout: 18 days
From first contact to payout: 31 days
Day 0
First contact
Day 4
Matter classes
Day 9
Privilege protocol
Day 13
Two-matter sample
Day 17
Buyer review
Day 22
Commercial indication
Day 27
Filtered export
Day 29
Acceptance
Day 31
Seller payout
Timelines may vary based on the data.
Ingestion & Extraction
A privilege protocol was agreed before any sample was shared (Day 9). Input Frontier's team then assisted hands-on with the export, privilege screening, and sanitization. The sample was privilege-screened, and the full delivery was a filtered export (Day 27). The deal included a preparation and diligence phase covering extraction, QA, and rights review.
Transaction Type
Non-exclusive license of a defined data package. The seller kept its underlying business.
Seller Compensation
~$780K
Illustrative figure · client anonymized
The Process
How the Process Works
01
Introduction & Intake
Tell us about your organization: years in operation, rough headcount, major systems (Slack, Google Workspace, CRM, Jira, industry software), how long records are retained, and whether you control them. Exact storage numbers are not required up front.
02
Small Representative Sample
Share a small, representative slice so we can see the structure, metadata, and how your systems link together. In the case studies, samples ranged from about 3 GB to 18 GB and arrived 5–13 days after first contact.
03
Technical & Rights Review
We confirm you have authority to license the records, check how many years are continuous and whether records link across systems, and decide what must be excluded for privacy, privilege, confidentiality, or third-party rights. Regulated archives (legal, healthcare) add a formal privilege or privacy protocol at this stage.
04
Valuation & Commercial Terms
Value depends on historical depth, volume, expertise and rarity, reasoning density, workflow richness, cross-system linkability, revisions, outcomes, completeness, rights, extraction difficulty, and privacy constraints. It is not based on gigabytes alone. You then receive a commercial indication.
05
Full Export, Filtering & QA
Inventory → Extract (keeping metadata, timestamps, formulas, threads, and relationships) → Filter out restricted material → Normalize → QA for completeness, broken links, missing attachments, duplicates, and time coverage → Deliver.
06
Acceptance & Payout
Once the delivered dataset is accepted, payment follows. In every case study, payout arrived 1–2 days after acceptance. Total time from first contact to payout ran from 28 to 36 days across all five case studies.
What makes an archive stronger
- Roughly 5+ years of operating history
- Roughly 10+ employees
- Multiple systems that can be linked by timestamps or IDs
- Preserved revisions and outcomes
These are heuristics, not hard minimums. A smaller archive can still be valuable if it is unusually expert, rare, longitudinal, dense, or well-linked.
Does Your Organization Look Like One of These?
Tell us about your systems and history. We'll help with the audit, sample, valuation, and extraction plan.
Or email us directly at team@inputfrontier.com
Anonymized case studies. Company names and identifying details have been changed to protect client confidentiality. Each profile is a composite of several engagements and typical deals in that industry; payout figures are illustrative.