NetDocuments has completed its acquisition of the eDOCS document management business from OpenText, adding the eDOCS product portfolio and its dedicated team in a deal the company says will broaden its global footprint and deepen its focus on modernizing legal work.
The transaction brings the eDOCS platform and its customer community under NetDocuments’ ownership, extending NetDocuments’ reach to organizations in more than 90 countries and positioning the company to support both cloud and on-premises document management needs across law firms, corporate legal departments, and public sector users.
NetDocuments noted that the acquisition is a continuity-first move for existing eDOCS customers, emphasizing that the on-premises eDOCS platform will remain supported with no planned end-of-life date. By keeping eDOCS running and staffed by long-time team members who have joined NetDocuments, the company aims to preserve established workflows, customer relationships, and partner engagements while offering a defined path to modernization for customers who want to migrate over time.
The company said customers and partners should expect proactive outreach and ongoing engagement as the transition proceeds, including access to resources such as FAQs and sign-ups for customer and partner welcome events. NetDocuments also indicated that it will provide a structured onboarding experience to help organizations understand what changes immediately—primarily ownership and support alignment—and what does not, including existing deployments, processes, and day-to-day usage patterns.
NetDocuments positioned the acquisition as a way to expand access to secure and compliant document management for organizations of varying sizes, particularly in legal and regulated environments where retention policies, auditability, confidentiality, and governance requirements shape technology decisions. Document management systems sit at the center of how legal teams create, store, search, collaborate on, and protect matters and case files, making platform stability and long-term support commitments a key concern for customers weighing modernization.
At the same time, NetDocuments emphasized that the combined business will enable upgrades to be “accelerated” when customers are ready, in part because NetDocuments will now own and support both platforms. The company said it intends to use purpose-built migration tools to help customers move forward at their own pace—aiming to preserve institutional knowledge, matter structures, and established processes rather than forcing disruptive “rip-and-replace” transitions.
By adding eDOCS, NetDocuments also broadens its ability to serve customers across different infrastructure preferences and timelines. Many legal organizations are modernizing document management to leverage cloud-based collaboration, advanced search, workflow automation, and AI capabilities, but adoption varies by region, practice area, client requirements, and internal risk tolerance. Maintaining an on-premises option while offering a modernization roadmap allows firms and legal departments to align technology changes with compliance obligations, client demands, and operational readiness.
NetDocuments is a cloud-native, AI-enabled legal document management platform, and its broader platform supports document lifecycle management across email, search, collaboration, bundling, automation, and security. The company also highlighted its ecosystem approach, noting integration with a wide range of third-party tools commonly used by legal teams, including Microsoft 365 and e-signature platforms.
The acquisition underscores continued consolidation and platform-building in legal technology, where vendors are seeking to expand installed bases, broaden geographic coverage, and offer customers more flexible transition paths between legacy deployments and newer cloud architectures. For eDOCS customers, NetDocuments’ messaging is that immediate operational continuity is the priority, with modernization available when and if organizations choose to pursue it.
KEY QUOTE:
“Customers and partners now have a dedicated home with a company committed to supporting what works today and helping legal professionals do their best work. Our focus is to provide stability and continuity first, while ensuring customers have access to a modern platform and a clear, seamless path to modernization when they choose to pursue it.”
Josh Baxter, CEO of NetDocuments
