How BENlabs Avoids Seven-Figure eDiscovery Costs with Onna's Prophylactic" Approach"

BENlabs’ entertainment industry expertise met modern legal realities when General Counsel Pra Chandrasoma recognized that rapid growth demanded a new approach to eDiscovery risk management in the age of Slack—transforming potential seven-figure litigation costs into predictable, manageable expenses.

The Challenge

As BENlabs evolved from a stable entertainment business to an aggressive growth company at the forefront of AI-driven influencer marketing, General Counsel Pra Chandrasoma faced a sobering realization: the company's massive Slack environment had become a ticking time bomb.

"So much of our business happens on Slack," Chandrasoma explained.

"Folks don't fully appreciate what that means from a discovery standpoint. They think it disappears into the ether. But no—very little of that stuff is privileged, all of that stuff is discoverable."

Years of business-critical conversations, strategic decisions, and day-to-day operations sat archived in channels and DMs—an enormous trove of potentially discoverable material. The entertainment industry's traditional reluctance toward litigation had let Chandrasoma sleep at night, but as BENlabs scaled, that assumption grew tenuous. The real risk was internal: "What about our employees? What about when you have a rapidly expanding employee base?" he asked, noting that employment lawsuits tend to spike in high-growth organizations that over-hire and right-size. Drawing on his big law experience, he knew exactly what manual discovery looked like—he'd once billed hundreds of hours reading every email a single custodian wrote.

The math was stark. "We would spend a million dollars in discovery if we ever got sued—no question. That first-line review would be absolutely enormous." BENlabs couldn't absorb those costs, let alone the time it takes to manually reassemble reams of JSON, Slack's native file format, just to make it reviewable. "We're not a huge public utility. We couldn't afford that." And restricting Slack usage through policy wasn't a real fix either:

"It's not the 97% of people you care about—it's the 3% who are going to say something loony, and those people aren't sitting there poring over policies in their spare time."

The Solution

Chandrasoma’s approach was methodical. Having no prior experience with eDiscovery tools, he consulted litigation counsel across multiple firms. The recommendation was unanimous: “Onna was the name that kept coming up—that had the best reputation. It was really like that four out of five dentists recommended Trident.”

“My job is to get rid of risks, and the reality is that Onna makes it incredibly easy to do that”

BENlabs implemented Onna not reactively, but prophylactically—as a strategic safeguard against future discovery costs. “Our use case thus far has been entirely insurance,” Chandrasoma emphasized. “I bought the tool with the intention of never using it.” The platform’s direct integration with Slack and other cloud sources meant that if litigation ever arose, BENlabs could rapidly collect and cull relevant communications without the massive manual review costs that would otherwise ensue. Onna’s date culling and search capabilities would allow the legal team to pinpoint responsive documents efficiently, dramatically reducing the scope and cost of any review. “I see Onna as a failsafe in case I can’t do my job right. My job is to get rid of risks cheaply, and the reality is that Onna makes it incredibly easy to do that. I think of Onna like I think of insurance.”

The Results

Five years later, Chandrasoma’s investment strategy has proven prescient. While BENlabs has never needed to conduct major discovery, the peace of mind and cost protection have delivered measurable value. The ROI calculation for BENlabs’ Onna investment demonstrates compelling financial logic:  

• Annual Onna Investment over First 4 Years: ~$90,000/year  

• Potential Discovery Costs Avoided: $1,000,000+ per litigation matter  

• Estimated litigation matters/year: 1–2  

• Annual cost avoidance: $910,000–$1,910,000/year  

“If we get sued this year, and we don’t have this tool expanded to the degree that I want it expanded, it’s a seven-figure bill. Easily,”

Chandrasoma explained to his finance team.

The math was straightforward: even a single employment lawsuit requiring extensive Slack discovery could cost 3–4 times BENlabs’ entire five-year Onna investment.