In 2018, Relativity partnered with Deloitte as part of its Deloitte Alliances Program, bringing the companies together to work closely to develop and leverage Relativity's platform. By February of this year, the duo created a Freedom of Information Act workflow tool. Now, Deloitte plans to leverage Relativity Trace for its clients' regulatory and organizational needs.

Relativity Trace allows a user to list what terms or behaviors are non-compliant to a regulation's or organization's guidelines. The compliance manager tracks activity in emails, audio and other file types. When a flagged word is written or said, Trace notifies the client's compliance officer via email, Slack or Relativity Mobile.

Relativity Trace general manager Jordan Domash said the idea for the application came about during discussions with clients who said they were manually tracking their employees' communications to flag for possible noncompliance. Relativity used machine learning to automate that process and allow for customization so that users can flag any term as important to their individual company.

Deloitte praised this customization, which allows for monitoring changing regulations and an organization's evolving needs to protect certain data.

“Leadership demand for solutions that support compliance efforts and do so in near real-time isn't going away, nor is the need for organizations to have the ability to tailor those solutions for their unique needs,” wrote Terry Bock, Deloitte Risk and Financial Advisory managing director, in an email. “We believe that organizations working today to improve operational efficiencies around legal, regulatory and investigative matters will ultimately realize competitive advantage in the future.”

To be sure, Deloitte isn't the only legal services company to sign up with Relativity Trace. Legal managed service provider FTI Consulting also joins the Relativity Trace partner program for similar compliance tracking capabilities.

“Relativity Trace is the technology platform that we will wrap our consulting and services around for compliance monitoring services,” wrote FTI Consulting senior managing director Wendy King in an email. She added, “We're offering Relativity Trace and compliance monitoring services because regulators within the U.S. and European Union are increasingly requiring active monitoring of employee activities within certain industries to prevent fraud and abuse.”

The news of Deloitte using Relativity solutions comes as it and other Big Four companies continue to invest in legal technology and enter the legal industry as a non-law practice corporation. Earlier this month, Deloitte announced its agreement to allow Epstein Becker & Green to advise its clients about U.S. employment law. In return, Epstein Becker will steer any clients with international employment concerns to the accounting organization.