Five Questions Legal Teams Should Be Asking Before the Relativity aiR Deadline
This article opens a five-part series on the planning decisions legal teams should make before the Relativity Server transition deadline. The series will walk through five questions that should guide readiness planning, starting with the most immediate one: what should organizations do now to avoid rushed decisions later?
Relativity has announced that organizations will no longer be able to create new matters or workspaces in Relativity Server as of December 31st, 2027. For legal teams, that makes 2026 the year to move from awareness to active planning and execution.
The organizations best positioned for the end of 2027 will be the ones that use the time between now and then to assess their current practices, reduce avoidable risk, and make transition decisions before timing limits their options.
Effective planning starts with a clear understanding of data collection practices, the Server data footprint, matter lifecycles, workflows, governance requirements, Relativity aiR cost implications, and future technology priorities. It also requires coordination across legal, litigation support, information governance, compliance, IT, and, in some cases, procurement.
This is the approach ProSearch is taking with our clients to help them prepare for the transition. We are assisting teams assess their current environments, pressure-test existing workflows, evaluate cost and governance tradeoffs, and build a practical path to Relativity aiR that supports both immediate needs and long-term discovery strategy.
The goal is not to push every matter or every workflow toward the same outcome. It is to help legal teams understand what they have, what still serves a purpose, what may be ready to retire, and what should shape the path forward. With a clear view of the current environment, organizations can make deliberate transition decisions before timing, budget, or operational pressure limits their options.
What Should Organizations Be Doing Now?
Revisit data collection practices
Organizations do not need every answer today, but they do need to begin the planning process. In parallel with transition planning, they should review whether current data collection practices still support their legal, operational, governance, and technology requirements.
Many collection workflows have evolved over years of operation and may not have been reassessed recently. The Relativity Server transition creates an opportunity to evaluate whether those workflows still fit the organization’s efficiency, scalability, governance, technology, and future operating goals. It also gives teams time to consider instituting new technology such as Purview Sync and Collect in Relativity aiR. Because changes to collection practices and onboarding new technology can take time, this assessment should happen alongside transition planning, even though the collection process itself is outside the scope of this series.
Understand the current Server environment
At the same time, organizations should create a clear inventory of their current Server environment so they can make informed transition decisions.
This is when you should bring in a trusted partner who understands the work that needs to be done. At ProSearch we help our clients review the existing Server environment, look at available dashboards and reporting, and identify the questions that need to be answered before transition planning becomes more detailed.
This means identifying what resides in Server today, including matters nearing the end of their lifecycle, long-term active matters, inactive or long-dormant workspaces, and data that may be appropriate for immediate decommissioning. Compiling detailed reporting on these data points now will help teams make proactive decisions and avoid decisions driven by urgency. If they do not already have one, organizations should establish a clear decommissioning procedure as soon as possible. This procedure helps narrow the focus to matters and matter types that may need to remain on Server after the deadline or become candidates for migration when the time comes. Planning decisions are only as good as the inventory they are based on.
Evaluate how existing workflows translate to Relativity aiR
Legal teams should also evaluate whether existing Server workflows will translate cleanly to Relativity aiR. Some may carry over with little change, while others may need to be redesigned, replaced, retired, or introduced for the first time in Relativity aiR. For example, organizations that have not traditionally used a two-workspace setup, such as separate Repository and Review workspaces, should consider how Relativity aiR’s tiered pricing may affect preferred workflows and budgets. The goal is not to recreate every existing process by default, but to decide deliberately what should carry forward, what should change, what should be added, and what can be retired.
Plan for future requirements
Planning should also account for how legal teams expect to operate in the future, not just how they work today. Technology investments, operating model changes, user expectations, reporting needs, and the growing role of AI may all influence transition decisions.
Evaluate execution tradeoffs together
Organizations need to evaluate the practical tradeoffs that will shape the transition plan. Cost, governance requirements, operational risk, business continuity, user adoption, sequencing, and timing are interconnected. Addressing any one of these factors in isolation can create challenges later. The goal is to develop a strategy that supports long-term business and legal objectives while accounting for execution constraints, including the need to maintain defensible discovery practices during the transition.
Use current-state understanding as the foundation
Matter portfolios, workflows, data collection practices, governance requirements, cost considerations, and future priorities all depend on an accurate picture of the current state. Without that foundation, transition planning becomes harder to align with business and legal objectives.
Organizations that begin this work now will have more flexibility, more options, and a stronger foundation for the decisions ahead. The transition window should be used to make deliberate choices before deadlines force them.
Next in the Series: What Is Actually in Your Server Environment?
In the next installment, we will focus on the first step in that process: understanding what is actually in your Server environment and using that inventory to inform transition planning.
Kenneth Spencer
For the past 10 years, Kenneth has been a leader at ProSearch, consistently demonstrating a keen ability to balance client needs with the processes and standards that lead to operational efficiency and scalability. He has served in client engagement management roles, as well as being director of platform integration and most recently ProSearch director of governance, risk, and compliance.
Kenneth was an original member of a team of eDiscovery professionals designed to manage document review and perform internal investigations in support of the legal department in one of the largest financial institutions in the world. Prior to that, Kenneth practiced law In Michigan and New York, specializing in litigation and contract, copyright, and trademark law. He also worked as an eDiscovery professional in document review management before transitioning to the vendor side, for the first time, here at ProSearch.
Mr. Spencer holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a licensed attorney in New York.
