Relativity Legal Hold

Overview

The product combines custodian outreach, preservation, and workflow reporting. Teams can notify and interview custodians, automatically follow up with those who have not responded, and track replies. Reports record communications with custodians and other relevant parties, supporting an audit trail for hold activity.

Legal Hold preserves data in place from major productivity platforms in a secure Azure environment. Microsoft 365, Google Vault, and Slack are managed as integrations within the product. As a case or investigation progresses, preserved data can be transferred to RelativityOne for review through Collect. That handoff is useful for teams already following Relativity workflows; it is less compelling if review happens elsewhere.

Key features

• Custodian workflow: Hold templates, acknowledgments, notifications, interviews, automated reminders, and response tracking cover the recurring steps of outreach. Automated follow-up helps reduce manual chasing, while matter tracking keeps hold activity organized.
• In-place preservation: Data remains in its source platform rather than requiring immediate collection into a separate review environment. This can suit organizations seeking preservation across the named productivity services, while Azure provides the stated secure environment for the workflow.
• Guided setup and monitoring: An enhanced interface and setup wizard help select custodians and data sources. Real-time updates and error alerts make workflow status visible, which is valuable when preservation tasks need attention.
• Scoping and transfer: Relativity says analytics and scoping criteria can reduce data volumes by up to 80%. That may limit what needs to move forward, and Collect provides a route to RelativityOne review as matters develop.
• API and support: The API includes retrieval of active custodian details, capped at 1,000 records per request. Relativity provides 24-hour technical assistance through live and emergency on-call support; the API limit matters for integrations that need to retrieve large custodian populations.

Pricing

Relativity Legal Hold: Custom pricing, provided on request. The product is licensed separately from the data volume commitment, so buyers should account for it as a distinct cost rather than assume it is included with that commitment. No seat or trial terms are stated.

The price structure is aimed at organizations prepared to discuss scope with Relativity rather than buyers comparing a fixed public rate. The separate license is an important budget consideration, especially where Legal Hold is only one part of a broader Relativity deployment.

Platforms

Legal Hold is available via API and web. It is installed into one or more Relativity workspaces, and Relativity recommends its aiR Hold and Collect workspace template. Full use requires installing the application and configuring access, email, the custodian portal, and preservation settings; email configuration is required. This gives administrators control over the deployment, but adds implementation work before teams can use the full workflow.

Who it's for

Relativity describes its platform as serving legal teams at law firms, corporations, and legal service providers. Legal Hold is the strongest fit for those teams when they already operate in Relativity and want custodian communications, preservation, and a path into RelativityOne review. Teams that need a more self-contained product or are not prepared to configure a Relativity workspace should look elsewhere.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Outreach, reminders, acknowledgments, and response tracking bring core custodian communications into one workflow.
• Pro: In-place preservation across Microsoft 365, Google Vault, and Slack, followed by transfer through Collect, supports continuity from hold to RelativityOne review.
• Pro: Real-time updates and error alerts make preservation workflow status easier to monitor.
• Con: A separate license and custom pricing make budgeting less straightforward than a product with a public rate.
• Con: Installation and configuration across access, email, portal, and preservation settings create meaningful setup overhead.
• Con: The active-custodian API endpoint returns at most 1,000 records per request, which may require pagination or additional handling in larger integrations.

Alternatives

Compare legal hold software if you want to evaluate a broader set of products. Consider OnitX CLM as another paid, API- and web-accessible option with pricing available through a demo request. OpenAxes is another paid option with API access.

Reveal may suit teams that prefer flexible pay-as-you-go or subscription pricing, unlimited users on every plan, and an optional Ask add-on. Casepoint Legal Hold uses tailored pricing based on the applications and use cases needed, with customers paying only for products they use.

CrashPlan Legal Hold is worth considering for organizations with 250 or more employees or those that need legal hold on its Enterprise plans; it uses custom-volume pricing on a per-user basis. DISCO Ediscovery prices by processed data volume and offers unlimited Cecilia AI without separate ingest, processing, or user fees.

Everlaw may fit teams seeking pricing based on data managed and usage, with flexible case or annual subscriptions, unlimited users and uploads, and credits required for some batch AI actions. Exterro eDiscovery is another web-based paid option with pricing details available through a demo request.

Verdict

Choose Relativity Legal Hold if your legal team already works in Relativity and values a connected route from custodian communications and in-place preservation to RelativityOne review. The main reason to choose it is that workflow continuity; the main reason to look elsewhere is the separate custom-priced license and the configuration work required to put it into service.