eDiscovery & Litigation Support Software Development

A focused module - such as a legal hold system or a custom processing connector - typically takes 2–4 months to deliver. A full eDiscovery platform covering processing, review, and production ranges from 4–9+ months depending on scope, the number of EDRM stages covered, and the depth of AI review features. The main cost drivers are data source connectors, processing scale and performance requirements, review interface complexity, AI/TAR validation, reporting needs, and security and compliance obligations. Time spent aligning workflows, acceptance criteria, and validation standards with legal teams can be as significant as pure engineering effort - and it's essential for defensibility.

Many SoftDoes clients continue to use their primary document review platform and add custom tools where it falls short: legal hold systems, data collection orchestration, chat and collaboration processing, automation scripts, analytics dashboards, and AI workflows that sit alongside Relativity, Everlaw, DISCO, or Reveal. A full custom platform makes sense when you're an eDiscovery provider building your own product, when your organization has highly specialized electronic data or workflows, or when you want to control long-term licensing and scaling costs - eDiscovery software automates data collection and review for legal cases, and owning that automation can deliver significant cost savings at scale. SoftDoes helps evaluate both paths through technical and business analysis before you commit, so the decision is grounded in your actual data volumes, matter mix, and budget.

Courts have accepted technology-assisted review - including continuous active learning - for years when parties use reasonable, transparent, and validated processes. Zubulake v. UBS Warburg established preservation duties in eDiscovery, and subsequent case law has affirmed that algorithm-driven review is defensible when properly documented. The software supports that defensibility: documented TAR and AI protocols, sampling plans, recall and precision measurement, training and decision logs, and immutable audit trails of how models were used. AI-assisted tools improve consistency and accuracy in reviews, but attorneys always make final relevance and privilege decisions, and disclosure of AI-assisted review approaches follows the rules and case law applicable in each matter.

Our platform handles e-mail (Exchange, Microsoft 365, Gmail), Office documents, PDFs, images with OCR, Slack and Microsoft Teams chats, mobile data exports, cloud storage (OneDrive, SharePoint, Box, Google Drive), audio and video, social media posts, and structured exports like CSV or database dumps. SoftDoes builds or configures parsers for specific exports and proprietary formats as needed, using modular ingestion pipelines - civil cases often exceed 130 gigabytes of data, and the system is designed to handle that scale with room to grow. Standard import and export formats include load files compatible with Relativity, Everlaw, DISCO, Nuix, and others (DAT, OPT, EDRM XML), plus native and image-based productions. Systematic validation - document counts, hash checks, metadata field comparisons, and exception reporting - runs on every import and export.

Security starts with concrete controls: encryption in transit and at rest, SSO and multi-factor authentication, matter-level access controls, permission-based views, chain of custody records, and immutability of audit logs. We align with common security frameworks and regulations - GDPR, HIPAA where applicable, and SOC 2/ISO 27001-aligned practices - because legal compliance is critical for software handling sensitive electronic information. SoftDoes collaborates with client security teams on threat modeling, secure deployment patterns (network segmentation, secrets management), and supports client-run penetration tests and audits. Data residency options and on-premises or private cloud deployments are available where regulatory or client policies require them.

For custom eDiscovery platform development, clients own their application source code (as contracted), configurations, and all matter data, unless a different commercial model is explicitly agreed. SoftDoes documents how third-party components, processing libraries, AI models, and open-source libraries are used, clarifying licenses and responsibilities so there are no surprises. At handover, clients receive repository access, build and deployment scripts, infrastructure-as-code where applicable, and documentation so they can operate or extend the system independently - that ownership is what makes custom eDiscovery software development a long-term investment rather than a recurring licensing expense.

Support begins with a hypercare period, then transitions to optional ongoing support with defined SLAs and extended coverage around major production deadlines. Incidents are triaged with top priority for issues affecting legal holds, processing accuracy, review accessibility, or imminent productions - because those directly affect your ability to meet court and regulator deadlines. Minor enhancements and roadmap features are scheduled to avoid peak matter periods, and training for litigation support and IT teams ensures your team required to operate the platform is fully prepared. Monitoring dashboards track processing throughput, exception rates, storage utilization, platform uptime, and review performance to catch issues before they affect the litigation team.

SoftDoes typically works side-by-side with internal litigation support, information governance, and IT teams rather than replacing them. Collaboration patterns include joint design sessions, shared Slack or Teams channels, co-run user acceptance testing, and a clear RACI for operations and support. Our engineers are comfortable collaborating with existing eDiscovery vendors and forensic providers and fitting into established change-management and security processes. The goal is to upskill internal teams and leave them with tools they can own confidently - building the kind of strong relationships that support long-term success in the eDiscovery process.