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Lighthouse
Lighthouse is an eDiscovery, review and information governance company founded in 1995 as a Seattle document copy shop, contracting 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, per the vendor's newsroom; the group holding entity is Lighthouse Holdings, LLC. Alongside forensics, managed review and consulting, it sells software: LighthouseIQ, launched in January 2026, whose four AI applications are IQ Answers (natural-language questions answered only from a matter's documents, with cited source passages), IQ Case Strategy (chronologies, timelines and deposition preparation), IQ Review (predictive and generative responsiveness and issue coding delivered into Relativity) and IQ Priv (privilege identification and generated privilege logs); and Spectra, a self-service eDiscovery platform over Relativity under a published subscription agreement.
The vendor 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 US operations.
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.
The models drive the capabilities the vendor now leads with, on an eDiscovery platform and service that runs without them, which is the B band. LighthouseIQ's four applications answer natural-language questions 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-service workflows.
Underneath are processing, hosting, Relativity review and production, and a large forensics and managed review business, all of which operate without the models. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
Grounding is real and documented with a described retrieval method, short of accuracy figures an outsider can test, which is the B band. The IQ Answers launch blog says answers draw only on the documents ingested for the matter, handle one question at a time to avoid context drift, and follow a three-step process of interpretation, layered retrieval (predictive relevance scoring, semantic similarity and context-preserving retrieval) and synthesis, with each response carrying highlighted source text and exemplar documents so every statement is traceable.
The GenAI defensibility Q&A describes sample-based validation with attorney review and prompt versioning. The only accuracy figure, that IQ Priv's privilege descriptions were 12 per cent more accurate than contract attorneys in blind comparisons, gives no test set, and the IQ Answers page describes 'no hallucinations', which is a claim rather than a measurement. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
A written commitment to attorney validation with real review surfaces, short of thresholds or a route when the AI is wrong, which is the B band. The GenAI defensibility Q&A says 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 document-by-document review to targeted validation and quality control, with summaries and rationales for each call, and IQ Priv produces editable log lines for attorney review.
The vendor 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. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
Real deployment evidence with figures or names, not both with a method, which is the B band. The Spectra page quotes Penningtons Manches Cooper by name without figures, reports an unnamed large healthcare organisation saving $500,000 in its first year with 95 per cent fewer documents sent to review, and 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 per-GB hosting charge.
LighthouseIQ is described as applied across 1.4 billion documents with outputs accepted by the DOJ and FTC, without naming the matters. Verified 18 September 2026.
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 confidentiality position is written into a published agreement, with privilege addressed directly, which is the A band. The Master Spectra Subscription Agreement (2 April 2026) bars Lighthouse from using client data, metadata, or the inputs or outputs of its AI services to train or develop any AI service, its own or a third party's, bars sending client data to any publicly available or shared AI model without written authorisation, gives privilege its own section confirming that privileged communications and work product remain protected and that work is done at counsel's direction, 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 the same no-training and no-retention position appears in the launch blog rather than a published agreement. Flagged for sampling. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
A plain contractual position on advice versus tooling, short of jurisdiction limits, which is the B band. The Spectra agreement states that Lighthouse is not engaged in the practice of law, provides no legal advice and creates no attorney-client relationship, that its services represent its interpretation as a legal technology provider, and that work on privileged material is done at the direction of the client or its counsel; it also describes optional matter conflict checks.
The GenAI defensibility Q&A says attorneys govern and validate AI outputs and confirm they reflect their professional judgement. The product is sold to law firms and legal departments, and no jurisdictional limits are stated. Verified 18 September 2026.
AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
Published governance over model behaviour: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
A published governance method with substance, short of testing results or an accountable owner for the product, which is the B band. The GenAI defensibility Q&A, given by the Senior Director of AI and Analytics, sets out how generative workflows are governed: 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 technology-assisted review practice.
The vendor says LighthouseIQ was pressure-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. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
Retention, deletion, access, subprocessors and incident practice are all published and specific enough to hold the vendor to, which is the A band. The Spectra agreement's Information Security Addendum commits to notify a security incident within 48 hours with a description, likely consequences, mitigation and a contact, to multi-factor access controls, central tamper-protected logging and annual third-party penetration tests, and the Data Processing Addendum commits to destroy or return personal data within 60 days of termination, with client data destroyed within 30 days under the main agreement.
The Processor Compliance Statement adds encryption at rest and in transit and a 30-day rolling backup retention, and 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. The launch blog says the AI workflows retain no customer data. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
A real published position on liability with an indemnity and a cap, short of anything specific to AI output, which is the B band. The Spectra agreement warrants that the services conform to their documentation, with refund, repair or replacement as the remedy; indemnifies the client against third-party claims that the Lighthouse IP infringes; caps each party's liability at fees paid in the prior 12 months, with carve-outs for fraud, wilful misconduct, gross negligence, death or personal injury and third-party claims; and gives a termination right with a refund if availability or response levels are missed for three consecutive months. Nothing addresses an incorrect AI answer, privilege call or log line. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
Real integrations into the review platforms legal teams use, with the flow described, short of implementer documentation, which is the B band. Spectra runs matter setup, processing and culling, then promotes data into Relativity Server or RelativityOne for review and carries it through production and export, with Workflow Manager and Native File Manager controlling what reaches active hosting; IQ Review delivers its results directly in Relativity.
The estate also covers Microsoft 365 and Purview and Google Vault linked-file workflows. Technical documentation is provided to customers through Spectra rather than published. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
Deployment options, the regions available and where processing happens as distinct from storage are all published, which meets the A band. The subprocessor list names Microsoft Azure in the US and UK and co-located data centres in Seattle, Phoenix, London, Frankfurt and Dornach, says RelativityOne runs in the customer-specified region, and gives a processing location for every subprocessor and affiliate, including off-hours support from India and review staffing in named countries on a case-by-case basis; the security page describes region-controlled cloud workflows that keep 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. Flagged for sampling. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
Real certifications with a named certifier, short of evidence a reader can open, which is the B band. The Processor Compliance Statement says the ISO 27001 information security management system is certified by A-LIGN Assurance, US operations hold SOC 2 and UK operations Cyber Essentials, and 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.
The security page links the ISO certificate and a security overview in a Trust Center at resource.lighthouseglobal.com, which renders only in the browser and could not be read, so scope and dates are not confirmed. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
The architecture and hosting are described without the model providers, which is the B band. The vendor describes IQ Fabric (processing, cognition and orchestration), combines predictive models trained on attorney coding with generative models, says IQ Answers uses legal-tuned models and that IQ Review and IQ Priv run in a private Azure-based environment, and 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. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
The shape of the offer is visible and the numbers are not, which is the C band. The Spectra agreement sets out a free Tier 1 support level and a paid Tier 2 expert tier, fees set in an order form, automatic annual renewal and rate increases on 90 days' notice, and the Spectra page offers a savings calculator and describes lower-cost Nearline storage; the per-GB hosting charge appears only inside the calculator's disclaimer. No rate, tier price or LighthouseIQ pricing is published. Verified 18 September 2026.
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.
Segments and matter types are described with substance, short of stated limits on the AI, which is the B band. The vendor serves corporate legal departments and law firms in financial services, technology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing and construction, with specialties in 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. Verified 18 September 2026.
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 Sep 18, 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.
The published agreement prohibits training on customer content. The Master Spectra Subscription Agreement (2 April 2026) bars Lighthouse from using client data, metadata, or the inputs or outputs of its AI services to train or develop any AI service, its own or a third party's, directly or indirectly, except to provide the services to that client, and bars sending client data to any public or shared AI model without written authorisation.
The agreement governs Spectra; the LighthouseIQ launch blog states the same no-training position 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.
Fixed periods are published. Client data is destroyed within 30 days of termination under the Spectra agreement (personal data within 60 days under its DPA), backups run on a 30-day rolling retention, and the LighthouseIQ launch blog says the AI 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.
The product keeps its own permission model at matter level. Spectra lets clients create matters, provision users and assign access by role, with delegated matter administration and less unnecessary access to review environments, and the Information Security Addendum says the client assigns each authorised user an account and 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.
Searched the Spectra agreement, Privacy Policy, Spectra and security pages and the LighthouseIQ launch material on 18 September 2026. IQ Answers 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.
Searched the same surfaces on 18 September 2026. The products cite matter documents rather than case law, and no check of cited authority for subsequent history is described.
Refusal and Uncertainty Behaviour
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.
Searched the same surfaces on 18 September 2026. IQ Answers restricts itself to the ingested documents and one question per result, and responses carry source passages, but no behaviour for when no supporting document is found, and no confidence signal shown to the user, is described.
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.
Searched the AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin and trade press reporting on 18 September 2026 for court records addressing fabricated or hallucinated content in output from Lighthouse products. None located. This signal does not record litigation history of any other kind.
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.
Professional responsibility is referred to in general terms. The GenAI defensibility Q&A says attorneys govern and validate AI outputs so they meet legal standards and reflect professional judgement, and notes that responsiveness review lacks settled case law. No ethics opinion, court AI order or rule, or judicial or bar guidance is named on the surfaces read.
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.
The vendor's charge is set up to reach the end client as a matter expense. The Spectra agreement provides for invoicing through e-billing platforms using generic timekeeper codes such as E118, the LEDES expense code for litigation support vendors, which is how law firms 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.
Parts of a defensibility record exist, short of a document-level export. The vendor documents prompts and versions, validates outputs on attorney-reviewed samples with metrics, provides rationales and citations for AI calls, and says its workflows have been accepted by regulators including the DOJ and FTC. No per-document record of the model used and the human verification is described as exportable.