As CDS wraps up the year and heads into 2026, the 2025 highlights offer a look back at the biggest moments from the past 12 months. This year marked significant progress across growth, innovation, and global expansion, as CDS strengthened partnerships, advanced secure cloud and AI-driven capabilities, and supported clients navigating increasingly complex legal and regulatory challenges. Together, these milestones reflect CDS’s continued momentum and commitment to delivering forward-looking, defensible solutions worldwide. Take a look at CDS’ biggest moments of the past year:

Advancing Legal Technology Through Recognized Innovation

CDS stood out at the 2025 Relativity Fest Innovation Awards, earning nominations in all five award categories, advancing as a finalist in three of them, and ultimately winning the Best Innovation: Beyond category for its Vision Financial Analysis solution.  

This recognition celebrates CDS’ ability to transform complex, structured financial datasets into searchable, AI-enhanced components within RelativityOne, supporting deeper and more efficient investigations, especially in matters involving millions of transactions.  

CDS Vision Financial Analysis exemplifies how thoughtful innovation can elevate legal data review and analysis. The company’s presence across every major category underscores its commitment to addressing diverse eDiscovery challenges with creative, effective tools and workflows. Winning in the Beyond category not only highlights CDS’ engineering excellence but also reaffirms its role as a leader in developing practical, impactful solutions that advance how teams leverage technology to solve real-world legal and compliance problems. 

PIIP 2025: Exploring Emerging Trends Through Expert-Led Discussion

In March, CDS brought together leading voices in legal technology at the Putting Insights Into Practice (PIIP) Forum in New York, centered on “Charting New AI Horizons in the Legal Dataverse.” The hybrid event delivered actionable insights on generative AI’s role in eDiscovery, data governance, hyperlinked evidence, and evolving case law shaping legal workflows. Key sessions examined the balance between human expertise and AI in document review, defensible collection strategies, and best practices for handling complex data types.   

A highlight of PIIP was the “Tech Titans: See the Potential, Hear the Truth” panel, where representatives from DISCO, Exterro, and Relativity shared candid perspectives on AI capabilities across their platforms, comparing automation, analytics, and real-world applications without sales pitches, helping attendees better understand how to leverage each for efficiency and accuracy.  

The forum reinforced CDS’ commitment to practical, collaborative exploration of technology and its real impact on legal teams. From expert-led discussions to peer dialogue, PIIP 2025 equipped professionals with strategies to navigate legal tech’s rapidly evolving future. 

Expanding Secure Cloud eDiscovery with RelativityOne in Germany

As CDS continued to expand its international footprint in 2025, one milestone stood out as a defining moment in its global growth strategy. The launch of RelativityOne in Germany marked a significant step forward, extending CDS’ secure cloud eDiscovery capabilities into one of Europe’s most privacy-focused markets. This strategic expansion enables clients to host sensitive data locally within Germany’s borders, supporting strict data residency, privacy, and security requirements while leveraging the scalability, automation, and AI-driven functionality of the RelativityOne platform. 

By delivering a full-featured cloud eDiscovery environment with advanced analytics, streamlined workflows, and integrated AI, CDS strengthened its ability to support complex and cross-border matters without compromising compliance. The Germany instance also reinforces CDS’ long-standing partnership with Relativity and reflects a continued investment in innovation that meets regional and global client needs. 

This achievement underscores CDS’ leadership in international eDiscovery and its commitment to providing secure, defensible, and forward-thinking solutions worldwide. 

Making an Impact Beyond Technology and Data

Throughout the year, CDS deepened its commitment to the communities where we live and work, supporting organizations that expand access to justice, combat food insecurity, and uplift underserved populations. Our ongoing partnerships with Food Bank For NYC and the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington D.C. helped fight hunger across two of the nation’s most diverse regions, while our volunteer efforts during the holiday season brought essential support to families in need. 

Beyond addressing immediate needs, CDS invested in initiatives that create lasting opportunity and empowerment. From sponsoring the 11th Annual GAPABA Gala celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander legal leaders, to attending the NYC Urban Debate League’s Champions of Debate event supporting student debaters from underserved communities, we showed up where it mattered most. Our continued partnership with Shelter Youth and Family Services in Chicago provided critical resources for at-risk children and families, while our commitment to Relativity’s Justice for Change program enabled us to apply eDiscovery expertise in support of pro bono legal teams pursuing fairness, accountability, and truth. 

These efforts reflect more than corporate responsibility; they represent our foundation rooted in diversity, service, and purpose. As we look toward 2026, we look forward to using our resources and expertise to strengthen communities because, for us, doing good is not an occasional effort, but an essential part of our identity. 

Empowering Change in the Legal Community

In 2025, CDS marked five years as a partner in Relativity’s Justice for Change program, a global initiative born from a simple but powerful question: “Why don’t we provide our product for free to organizations fighting for social justice?” What began during a pivotal moment of civil unrest has evolved into a movement that uses AI and advanced analytics to expand access to life-altering justice for individuals and communities who would otherwise lack the resources to pursue it. 

CDS Director of eDiscovery Strategy Chris O’Connor was invited to be a speaker on a panel featuring someone from the Innocence Project and a representative from a local nonprofit, with moderation by a Relativity intern. The event was part of our global Community & Culture Day celebration, marking the 5th anniversary of Justice for Change. That commitment translated into action when CDS helped exonerate Albert “Ian” Schweitzer after 23 years in custody. Working alongside the Innocence Project, CDS used RelativityOne’s advanced analytics and custom workflows to uncover critical discrepancies in decades-old records that helped clear his name. We explored this aspect of our partnership further in an episode of our 5 in 5 series, examining how purpose-driven technology reshapes the legal landscape. 

Justice for Change demonstrates that access to justice shouldn’t depend on access to resources. As the program expands globally, CDS remains committed to this mission because when technology pairs with purpose and partnership, it can help right wrongs that might otherwise stay buried. 

Mastering the Competencies That Drive Results

In October, CDS earned its eighth Relativity competency: the Security Best Practices Competency, solidifying our position as a leader among Relativity partners worldwide. This milestone recognizes CDS’ expertise in implementing Relativity’s security best practices to maintain strong security posture, effective risk mitigation, and stringent access control across client environments, ensuring every RelativityOne instance meets or exceeds rigorous security standards. 

As one of the earliest partners to complete the currently available competencies within Relativity’s Customer Excellence Competency Track, CDS demonstrated proficiency across enterprise security, data protection, and cybersecurity governance. Earning this competency required full implementation of recommended RelativityOne Security Configurations, enabling Relativity Lockbox and Lockbox Hardening across all environments, and establishing a defined global escalation process for cybersecurity events. CDS also participates in Relativity’s Security Advisory Board sessions, helping shape the platform’s evolving security roadmap. 

This achievement reflects more than technical capability; it validates our long-standing commitment to operational excellence, client trust, and the proactive security measures that define secure eDiscovery leadership.  

Helping The Industry Navigate AI with Confidence

Another considerable moment that brought everything together included CDS stepping forward as a thought leader through impactful video content and a timely AI whitepaper.

Through a series of partnership videos with Relativity, CDS highlighted what nearly two decades of collaboration really looks like. From innovations like CDS Convert and Vision to participation in the Relativity Premier Success Program, the videos reinforced CDS’ distinction as the only partner across all existing Relativity Gold Partner types, and our belief that true platform excellence goes far beyond hosting.

Alongside this content, CDS released its latest whitepaper, AI in Legal Practice: Bridging the Gap Between Innovation and Adoption, addressing one of the most pressing challenges facing legal teams today. Instead of adding to the AI hype cycle, the paper focused on real concerns—ethics, security, compliance, and cost—while offering a practical, defensible framework for responsible adoption.

Together, this content marked a defining moment for CDS: helping legal teams move from uncertainty to confidence, and from curiosity to real, measurable impact.

Making Complex eDiscovery Challenges Actionable In Five Minutes

In January, we set out to prove that big challenges don’t always require long explanations—just the right ones.

Kicking off 2025, CDS partnered with Relativity to launch 5 in 5, a video series designed to tackle real-world eDiscovery challenges in just five minutes. The series was designed for busy legal professionals seeking quick snapshots of how exactly Relativity and CDS work together..

Across all episodes, 5 in 5 explored how AI is reshaping review, privilege, investigations, case strategy, data protection across matters, workflows, and regions, and much more. From prompt engineering and trusting AI results to DSARs in EMEA and expanding access to justice, the series addressed the questions legal teams are grappling with right now.

What made 5 in 5 stand out was the collaboration. Each episode reflected shared expertise between CDS and Relativity, grounded in real experience and focused on outcomes.

By making advanced topics approachable and actionable, 5 in 5 reinforced CDS’ role as a guide through an increasingly complex eDiscovery landscape.

Showing Up Globally: Community, Culture, and Recognition at Relativity Fest

This year, CDS showed up as only a true Festie Bestie” knows how — where it mattered and on a global stage.

From Relativity Fest Chicago to Relativity Fest London, CDS brought together clients, partners, and industry peers across two major markets, creating spaces where meaningful conversations could happen beyond the conference walls. Both events saw incredible turnout, high energy, and the kind of engagement that reflects the strength of the CDS community.

In Chicago, the week was made even more memorable when CDS took home our first Innovation Award, a moment of recognition that underscored the trust and credibility we’ve built through years of partnership and results.

Across both cities, these moments weren’t just celebrations; they were proof of CDS’ growing global presence and the community that continues to show up with us year after year.

CDS Culture in Action: Connecting Teams and Driving Results

How does one reflect back on a year of moments that mattered? In 2025, as any good team does CDS met to connect, foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing. The results? Good times. Who says you can’t have a little fun when aligning on strategy and growth? Our operational leaders consistently collaborate to make things better for our clients. Complete connection, discovering teamwork and learning and sourcing success. Over 20 years later, that’s the CDS culture that we continue to uphold.

Together, these 2025 milestones highlight CDS’s continued momentum and commitment to innovation, security, and global growth. As we roll into 2026, we look forward to building on this progress and supporting organizations facing evolving eDiscovery and compliance challenges. For all of your eDiscovery needs, contact us at .