Recommind Revamps Legal Hold Strategy

Evan Koblentz

Law Technology News

02-13-2013

Software company Recommind Inc. on Wednesday announced a new cloud-based legal hold product, and plans to have a new on-premise version by the end of this year, officials said Wednesday.

Recommind, of San Francisco, is licensing Zapproved Inc.'s Legal Hold Pro service. Recommind previously referred customers who wanted legal hold to Exterro Inc. and IBM's PSS Systems, both of which sell traditional server software.

However, customers wanted something simpler and less expensive, said Recommind's Craig Carpenter, vice president of marketing and business development. "We definitely had customers say, why don't you have this already," he noted. "Something with a price tag that approached seven figures is not something that our clients wanted to do."

Zapproved's service, which Recommind calls Axcelerate Legal Hold, will start at less $10,000 per year, Carpenter said. The software gives customers an audit trail of legal hold notifications and encrypts user data, among other features.

Zapproved, in Portland, Ore., launched Legal Hold Pro in December 2009. Sydney, Australia-based Nuix also sells the Legal Hold service under its own brand, Zapproved officials stated. Legal Hold Pro received updates for its data transfer features at LegalTech New York this year.

Recommind also wants to build or license another legal hold product that can run on customers' own servers, Carpenter said. "It's something we're looking to get done toward the end of the year," he explained.

Recommind had a product, Insite Legal Hold, from October 2008 until August 2010. It lacked notification features and was renamed Axcelerate ECA and Collection. But in 2009 Recommind established the Exterro and PSS Systems partnerships, and began promoting those more strongly after the 2010 change.

Industry analyst David Horrigan, of 451 Group, includes Recommind among his clients. Recommind's decision to re-evaluate its legal hold strategies is another mark in the trend of e-discovery companies trying to be one-stop shops, he observed. "Obviously, Recommind is trying to cover the bases with legal hold both for on-premises and the cloud. That is a trend that we've been seeing for e-discovery as a whole," he said.

Horrigan said that when talking with clients about legal hold, he hears about Exterro, Guidance Software Inc., and PSS Systems. "Recommind may be deciding it's just more efficient to license the technology than invest in its own R&D," he said.

Evan Koblentz is a reporter for Law Technology News. Send email or follow him on Twitter.