Litera launches Clean+ with cloud automation and AI to eliminate metadata risks in law firms
Artificial Intelligence is changing the pace of law firms in ways few people expected. Documents are produced faster, in higher volume, and almost always sent by email. The problem is that every attachment sent can carry information that should have stayed in-house — hidden metadata that nobody sees, but that can compromise sensitive data, break client trust, or even raise serious ethical concerns.
That is exactly where Litera comes in. The company just announced Clean+, the cloud-hosted evolution of the former Metadact Server, bringing automation and cutting-edge protection to legal communications — without requiring the IT team to manage any on-premises infrastructure. The pitch is straightforward: make sure no document leaves the firm carrying information that should not be there. 🔒
The announcement was made on June 17, 2026, simultaneously in Chicago and London, and demonstrations of Clean+ are being held at the LegalTechTalk event, taking place on June 17 and 18, 2026, in the English capital.
What metadata is and why it scares legal teams so much
When a lawyer saves a contract in Word or exports a PDF, the file does not just store the visible text. It also automatically records a whole series of behind-the-scenes information — like the name of the document author, the editing history, comments that were deleted but not actually removed, previous versions of the text, the name of the machine where the file was created, and even data about the company. All of this is metadata, and it travels along with the document every time it is emailed or shared on any platform.
The real danger lies precisely in how invisible this type of data is. The recipient can open the file, go into the document properties, or use a simple analysis tool, and suddenly they have access to information the sender never intended to reveal — a negotiation strategy buried in a previous version, an internal comment about the client, or even the name of another client who was involved in a joint review. In law firms, where professional secrecy is both an ethical and legal obligation, this kind of leak can have serious consequences, from losing client trust to disciplinary proceedings.
And the scale of the problem grows right alongside the adoption of Artificial Intelligence tools in day-to-day legal work. The faster documents are produced and distributed, the greater the chance that some file goes out without proper security treatment. It is an interesting paradox: the very technologies that boost productivity also expand the risk surface — unless there is an automated layer of protection working behind the scenes.
How Litera Clean+ solves this in practice
Clean+ was built to address this exact blind spot in legal communications. The solution works as a fully hosted service by Litera that routes email attachments through the company servers, automatically inspecting and scrubbing the metadata present in files before they reach the external recipient. All of this happens in the cloud, without the user needing to do anything manually and without the IT team needing to provision, patch, or maintain any local server.
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Automation is the core of the value proposition. Instead of relying on each individual lawyer to remember to clean a document before sending — which in practice rarely happens consistently — the system takes on that responsibility silently and continuously. It monitors attachments in real time, applies a single standardized cleaning policy, and delivers the scrubbed document to the recipient. The lawyer sends as usual, with zero interruption to their workflow, and security happens transparently.
An important detail that sets Clean+ apart from other approaches on the market is that the cleaning engine behind the tool is deterministic and rule-based, not probabilistic. That means it does not try to guess what should be removed — it follows precise rules refined over more than 30 years of development. As Joey Benedek, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Litera, emphasized in the announcement, probabilistic AI tools cannot be trusted to decide which metadata stays and which gets stripped. When the topic is protecting privileged data, the margin for error needs to be zero.
This metadata cleaning engine, by the way, is the most widely used in the global legal sector. According to the 2025 ILTA Tech Survey, Litera technology is present in 42% of the market — a share that no AI-focused newcomer has been able to replicate so far.
Broad compatibility with the Outlook ecosystem
Another strong point of Clean+ is its complete coverage of the Microsoft email ecosystem. The solution works with classic Outlook, new Outlook, Outlook for Mac, Outlook on the Web, and even on mobile devices. This broad compatibility is critical because many firms operate with professionals using different versions and platforms of Outlook at the same time, and a gap in coverage on any of those fronts would be enough to create a security breach.
The cleaning policy is applied uniformly across all these platforms, ensuring the level of protection is the same regardless of where the lawyer is working — at the office, at home, in court, or on the go. 📱
The reorganization of the Clean product line and what changes for current Metadact users
The launch of Clean+ is part of a broader brand consolidation strategy within Litera. The company is reorganizing the entire Metadact line under the Clean brand, creating a tier structure that is clearer and easier for clients to understand. The new lineup looks like this:
- Clean Desktop — formerly known as Metadact Desktop, designed for local protection on the user machine.
- Clean Cloud — formerly Metadact on Litera One, for cloud-based protection integrated into the Litera One platform.
- Clean Server — the former Metadact Server, for organizations that prefer to keep infrastructure on-premises.
- Clean+ — the evolution of Metadact Server within Litera One, delivering server-level protection without the need for your own infrastructure.
This reorganization makes life easier for IT teams and firm managers when choosing the protection model that best fits their reality. Each tier serves a different profile of needs and technological maturity, but they all share the same deterministic cleaning engine that built Litera reputation in this space.
Clean+ is available as a standalone package and also comes included in Draft Advanced, the company full AI-powered legal drafting suite. General availability is set for June 30, 2026, and clients already using Metadact Server will receive dedicated support for migration.
Why law firms need this right now
The legal market is undergoing rapid transformation. Firms that once resisted digitization now adopt management platforms, electronic signatures, automated contract review, and Artificial Intelligence tools for legal research and document drafting. This movement is positive and inevitable, but it carries greater responsibility for protecting the information that circulates within these platforms and, most importantly, outside of them — in emails, in file sharing, and in communications with clients and opposing parties.
Litera identified this gap really well. As Joey Benedek put it in the official announcement, the practice of law runs on trust, and hidden data in documents breaks that trust. With AI accelerating the way lawyers draft and collaborate, the volume of documents sent outside the firm only grows — and the risk grows with it.
The choice of a 100% cloud architecture is no coincidence — it lowers the adoption barrier for firms of all sizes, from smaller operations with just a few lawyers to large practices with hundreds of professionals spread across multiple offices. No hardware needed, no complex setup, and the tool updates continuously without impacting daily operations.
Another relevant aspect is the alignment with data protection regulations that are increasingly on firms radar. In the United States, regulations like state-level data privacy laws and bar association ethics rules require organizations to adopt technical and administrative measures to protect personal data, and legal documents frequently contain this type of information in abundance. Having an automation layer that ensures metadata scrubbing before sending is both a solid security practice and a concrete way to demonstrate compliance with current legal obligations. 📋
Who Litera is and why it matters
For those not yet familiar, Litera positions itself as the legal AI platform that best unifies the practice and business of law. The company carries more than 30 years of expertise in the legal sector and serves over 15,000 global clients, with 2.3 million daily users. Here is a number that really stands out: 99% of Am Law 100 firms — the ranking of the largest law firms in the United States — use Litera solutions.
The company combines purpose-built legal technology with Lito, its award-winning legal AI agent, and offers solutions ranging from document drafting and text comparison to contract review, knowledge management, and business development. Everything integrates directly with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, working across different devices.
This track record matters because it reinforces a central argument from the Clean+ announcement: metadata protection is not something you solve with an AI startup that popped up yesterday. It is a problem that demands an engine refined over decades, tested in real-world high-sensitivity scenarios, and maintained by a company that deeply understands the nuances of legal work.
What to expect from Litera going forward
The launch of Clean+ is another step in a strategy that Litera has been building for a while: establishing itself as the central platform for the entire lifecycle of legal documents, from creation to secure distribution. The company has been investing consistently in integrating Artificial Intelligence into its products, and the inclusion of Clean+ within the Draft Advanced package signals that the vision is to create a complete workflow where the lawyer drafts, reviews, and sends documents with protection built into every step.
The brand reorganization under the Clean umbrella also suggests that new products or features could emerge within this family, potentially expanding protection beyond Outlook and covering other communication and collaboration channels used by modern firms.
For firms that still do not treat metadata protection as a priority, the message from the market is getting louder and clearer. The tools to solve this problem exist, they are mature, and with solutions like this one from Litera, they have reached a level of practicality that requires zero extra effort from the team. When metadata errors are eliminated at the source, lawyers send legal advice with confidence and clients receive work that reflects the firm standard of excellence. 🤔
The combination of rule-based deterministic automation, comprehensive metadata protection, and cloud architecture with no on-premises infrastructure that Clean+ offers represents exactly the kind of solution the legal sector needed: discreet, efficient, and aligned with the reality of people who need to work fast without compromising security.
