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Lighthouse
Lighthouse is an eDiscovery, review and information governance company founded in 1995 as a Seattle document copy shop. It contracts as Lighthouse Document Technologies Inc. of Bellevue, Washington, with Lighthouse Global Europe Ltd in London. Funds affiliated with Lightyear Capital took a controlling stake in 2019, and the group holding entity is Lighthouse Holdings, LLC. Alongside forensics, managed review and consulting, it sells software.
LighthouseIQ, launched in January 2026, has four AI applications. IQ Answers answers questions in plain language only from a matter's documents, with cited source passages, and IQ Case Strategy builds chronologies, timelines and deposition preparation. IQ Review codes for responsiveness and issues with predictive and generative AI and delivers the results into Relativity, and IQ Priv identifies privilege and generates privilege logs.
Spectra is a self serve eDiscovery platform over Relativity under a published subscription agreement. Lighthouse says LighthouseIQ outputs have been accepted by the DOJ and FTC, and that its AI workflows run in a private Azure environment, retain no customer data and train no models on customer content. Lighthouse holds ISO 27001 certification from A-LIGN and SOC 2 for its United States operations.
Lighthouse, head to head
Side by side on the same 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals: where the two part company, and what neither one publishes.
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Ordered by how closely the graded profiles match across the 15 capability axes, inside the same categories. See how each axis is graded in the methodology.
Capability grades
All 15 axes, graded from public sources on the date shown. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.
AI Centrality
How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.
Lighthouse now leads with its AI applications, built on an eDiscovery platform and service that runs without them. LighthouseIQ's four applications answer questions in plain language from a matter's documents, draft chronologies and case strategy, code documents for responsiveness and issues, and identify privilege and draft privilege logs, using predictive and generative AI. Spectra runs integrated machine learning and AI services inside its self serve workflows.
Underneath are processing, hosting, Relativity review and production, and a large forensics and managed review business, all of which operate without the models.
Citation Accuracy and Hallucination Disclosure
Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.
IQ Answers draws its answers only from the documents ingested for the matter and handles one question at a time to avoid context drift. Each answer passes through interpretation, then layered retrieval combining predictive relevance models, semantic similarity and retrieval that keeps context intact, then synthesis. Each response carries highlighted source text and exemplar documents so every statement can be traced.
Lighthouse's defensibility guidance describes validation on samples with attorney review and prompt versioning. The only accuracy figure is that IQ Priv's privilege descriptions were 12 percent more accurate than contract attorneys in blind comparisons, with no test set given. IQ Answers is marketed as free of hallucinations, with no measurement behind the claim.
Autonomy and Oversight Model
What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.
Under Lighthouse's defensibility guidance, prompt engineers set AI instructions with counsel, attorneys review results on sample populations to confirm accuracy, and iterative feedback refines the prompts. IQ Review shifts work from reviewing each document to targeted validation and quality control, with summaries and rationales for each call, and IQ Priv produces editable log lines for attorney review. Lighthouse states that AI does not replace human reviewers.
No confidence threshold, stopping point or published escalation path is stated, and IQ Review is run by Lighthouse consultants rather than configured by the customer.
Operational and Outcome Evidence
Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.
Lighthouse quotes Penningtons Manches Cooper by name without figures, and reports an unnamed large healthcare organization saving $500,000 in its first year with 95 percent fewer documents sent to review. It states that Spectra customers saved $2,951,280.50 in July 2026, calculated as native data kept out of Relativity hosting multiplied by the standard hosting charge per GB. LighthouseIQ is described as applied across 1.4 billion documents with outputs accepted by the DOJ and FTC, without naming the matters.
Privilege and Confidentiality Posture
How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.
The Master Spectra Subscription Agreement (2 April 2026) bars Lighthouse from using client data or metadata to train or develop any AI service, its own or a third party's. The same bar covers the inputs and outputs of its AI services. It bars sending client data to any publicly available or shared AI model without written authorization. Privilege has its own section confirming that privileged communications and work product remain protected and that work is done at counsel's direction.
The agreement also commits to notice before compelled disclosure and requires deletion of client data within 30 days of termination. Spectra documents matter creation and role based access so users see only the matters they need. The contract governs Spectra; for LighthouseIQ, Lighthouse states the same position on training and retention outside any published agreement.
UPL and Professional Responsibility Posture
Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.
The Spectra agreement states that Lighthouse is not engaged in the practice of law, provides no legal advice and creates no attorney client relationship. Its services represent Lighthouse's interpretation as a legal technology provider, and work on privileged material is done at the direction of the client or its counsel. Optional matter conflict checks are offered. Lighthouse's defensibility guidance says attorneys govern and validate AI outputs and confirm they reflect their professional judgment. The product is sold to law firms and legal departments, and no jurisdictional limits are stated.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
How the generative workflows are governed is set out by Lighthouse's Senior Director of AI and Analytics in a published question and answer on defensibility. Prompt engineers work with counsel, attorneys validate outputs on sample sets with qualitative and quantitative metrics, and prompts are documented and versioned. It also says predictive workflows follow validated practice for technology assisted review. Lighthouse says LighthouseIQ was tested on live matters over three years.
No release testing results, named accountability for the AI applications, or findings on uneven performance across languages or data types are published.
AI Safety and Data Stewardship
Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.
The Information Security Addendum to the Spectra agreement commits to notify a security incident within 48 hours with a description, likely consequences, mitigation and a contact. It also commits to multi factor access controls, central logging protected against tampering, and annual third party penetration tests. The Data Processing Addendum commits to destroy or return personal data within 60 days of termination, and the main agreement requires client data to be destroyed within 30 days.
The Processor Compliance Statement adds encryption at rest and in transit and a rolling 30 day backup retention. The published subprocessor list names every subprocessor, affiliate and review staffing firm with its role and processing location, with a dated change log and notice and objection rights for new ones. Lighthouse says its AI workflows keep no customer data.
AI Liability and Recourse
What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.
Spectra's subscription agreement warrants that the services conform to their documentation, with refund, repair or replacement as the remedy. It indemnifies the client against third party claims that the Lighthouse IP infringes, and caps each party's liability at fees paid in the prior 12 months. The cap excludes fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, death or personal injury and third party claims. The client may terminate with a refund if availability or response levels are missed for three months in a row. Nothing addresses an incorrect AI answer, privilege call or log line.
Practice Systems Integration Depth
How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.
Spectra runs matter setup, processing and culling, then promotes data into Relativity Server or RelativityOne for review and carries it through production and export. Workflow Manager and Native File Manager control what reaches active hosting. IQ Review delivers its results directly in Relativity. The platform also covers Microsoft 365 and Purview and workflows for Google Vault linked files. Technical documentation is provided to customers through Spectra rather than published.
Deployment Model and Data Residency
Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.
Lighthouse hosts on Microsoft Azure in the United States and UK and colocation data centers in Seattle, Phoenix, London, Frankfurt and Dornach, and RelativityOne runs in the region the customer specifies. Its subprocessor list gives a processing location for every subprocessor and affiliate, including support outside office hours from India and review staffing in named countries case by case. Cloud workflows are controlled by region, keeping storage and computing within defined boundaries, and the LighthouseIQ workflows run in a private Azure environment. What changes between Spectra and managed service deployments is not set out.
Security Certifications and Trust Center
Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.
A-LIGN Assurance certifies Lighthouse's ISO 27001 information security management system, United States operations hold SOC 2 and UK operations hold Cyber Essentials. The Spectra agreement commits to an annual assessment against ISO 27001, the HIPAA Security Rule and SOC 2 Type 2, with a summary provided on written request. Lighthouse offers the ISO certificate and a security overview through a Trust Center, and no report date or scope statement is published.
Model Supply Chain Disclosure
Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.
LighthouseIQ runs on IQ Fabric (processing, cognition and orchestration), which combines predictive models trained on attorney coding with generative models. Lighthouse says IQ Answers uses models tuned for legal work and that IQ Review and IQ Priv run in a private environment based on Azure. Its subprocessor list names Microsoft Azure for hosting and Daypack Research for AI workflow management tools, with notice before new subprocessors. No model, model provider or version is named.
Commercial Transparency
Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.
Spectra's agreement sets out a free Tier 1 support level and a paid Tier 2 expert level, fees set in an order form, automatic annual renewal and rate increases on 90 days' notice. Spectra comes with a savings calculator and cheaper Nearline storage, and the hosting charge per GB appears only in the calculator's disclaimer. No rate, tier price or LighthouseIQ pricing is published.
Firm and Practice Coverage
Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.
Corporate legal departments and law firms in financial services, technology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing and construction are Lighthouse's clients. Its specialties include antitrust and HSR second requests, multidistrict litigation, DSARs and Microsoft 365, and Spectra covers investigations, DSARs and compliance reviews, and routine litigation. IQ Answers works on any data with document text, and LighthouseIQ claims no limits on document types or volume; nothing states where the AI applications perform less well.
5 public documents
The public pages on file for Lighthouse, with the recorded signals each one supports and the date it was last read. Open any of them and check the reading against the record.
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lighthouseglobal.com/spectra-terms4 signals
Client Data in Training, Prompt and Output Retention, Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice and 1 more
Read Sep 18, 2026
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Bar Guidance Alignment, Court Disclosure Support
Read Sep 18, 2026
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Fabricated Citation Record
Read Oct 13, 2026
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Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Read Sep 18, 2026
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lighthouseglobal.com/spectra1 signal
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Read Sep 18, 2026
Legal Signals
What each signal meansA signal records what public sources say on the date shown. It is not a grade and it is not a recommendation. Where a signal reads Not addressed, it means the index did not locate the material in public sources on that date, which is a statement about disclosure rather than about the product.
Client Data in Training
Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?
The published terms prohibit training on customer content. Not a policy page, the agreement.
Under its Master Spectra Subscription Agreement (2 April 2026), Lighthouse may not use client data or metadata to train or develop any AI service, its own or a third party's. The same holds for the inputs and outputs of its AI services, directly or indirectly, except to provide the services to that client. Sending client data to any public or shared AI model needs written authorization. The agreement governs Spectra, and Lighthouse states the same position against training for IQ Review and IQ Priv.
Prompt and Output Retention
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
A specific retention period is published and the customer cannot change it.
Under the Spectra agreement, client data is destroyed within 30 days of termination, and personal data within 60 days under its DPA. Backups run on a rolling 30 day retention, and Lighthouse says its LighthouseIQ workflows retain no customer data. Clients manage matter hosting and archiving within Spectra, but no setting for the retention of AI inputs and outputs is described.
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
The product maintains its own permission model, documented, requiring the firm to keep it aligned.
Spectra lets clients create matters, provision users and assign access by role, with delegated matter administration and less unnecessary access to review environments. Under the Information Security Addendum, the client gives each authorized user an account and a role that controls access. Review itself runs in Relativity, whose permissions apply there.
Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
Terms commit to notice where lawfully permitted. No transparency report located.
The Spectra agreement commits to prompt written notice of a court order, regulatory requirement or subpoena, where permitted by law and feasible, so the client can seek a protective order, and its DPA commits to immediate notice of any request to disclose client personal data with a copy of the request. No transparency report is published.
Primary Law Corpus Provenance
Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?
No located public material identifies the corpus behind the product’s answers.
LighthouseIQ's question answering draws only on the documents ingested for the matter; no external legal corpus is described.
Good Law Verification
Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?
No located public material addresses whether authority is checked for subsequent history.
Lighthouse's products cite matter documents rather than case law, and no check of cited authority for subsequent history is described.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?
No located public material addresses what the product does when it cannot ground an answer.
Each IQ Answers result covers one question, draws only on the matter's ingested documents and carries its source passages. Nothing describes what the product does when no supporting document is found, and no confidence signal is shown to the user.
Fabricated Citation Record
Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?
No court order, opinion or disciplinary record addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations produced by this product has been located as of the date shown. This is a statement about the public record on that one subject, not a finding about the product, and this signal is not a litigation history.
Damien Charlotin's database of AI Hallucination Cases, which collects court decisions on hallucinated AI content, has no entry for Lighthouse, LighthouseIQ or Spectra. Lighthouse's AI answers and codes from a matter's own documents rather than from case law.
Bar Guidance Alignment
Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?
Public materials refer to professional responsibility in general terms without naming guidance.
Lighthouse's defensibility guidance says attorneys govern and validate AI outputs so they meet legal standards and reflect professional judgment, and notes that responsiveness review lacks settled case law. No ethics opinion, court AI order or rule, or judicial or bar guidance is named.
Billing and Fee Posture
Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?
The vendor’s charge reaches the client as a disbursement or case expense, typically advanced by a contingency firm and recovered from a settlement, so the fee question is disclosure of a pass through cost rather than compressed hours. The summary records whether the vendor addresses that disclosure.
Invoicing under the Spectra agreement can run through electronic billing platforms using generic timekeeper codes such as E118. That is the LEDES expense code for litigation support vendors, which law firms use to pass vendor costs to clients. Nothing addresses how firms should disclose AI assisted work or its cost to clients.
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
A current subprocessor or model provider list is published.
A current subprocessor list is published, with each subprocessor's role, processing location and parent, a dated change log (latest 14 September 2026), and a Data Processing Addendum and Information Security Addendum readable in the Spectra terms. No AI model provider is named: the list names Microsoft Azure for hosting and Daypack Research for AI workflow tools.
Court Disclosure Support
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
Some elements of the record are available, short of a document level export.
Lighthouse documents prompts and versions, validates outputs on samples reviewed by attorneys with metrics, provides rationales and citations for AI calls, and says its workflows have been accepted by regulators including the DOJ and FTC. No record for each document of the model used and the human verification is described as exportable.