It sometimes feels as though the legal profession’s primary engagement with AI so far involves lawyers citing fake cases generated by ChatGPT and getting hauled before judges to explain themselves. And with global legal hallucination incidents closing in on 1000 cases, that’s an understandable reaction. Everyone gets a good laugh and the always vocal Luddite contingent of the bar feels vindicated.
But focusing on AI’s limitations as a consistently reliable brief writer is like rejecting a grill because you don’t like hot dogs. Which isn’t a knock on what AI can bring as a research and drafting tool — or hot dogs for that matter — but the technology can do other things! Some of which carry obvious value for lawyers and aren’t impacted by hallucinations at all.
No one wants to turn over a “live ammunition” deposition to a neophyte lawyer. But how does a neophyte learn to take a deposition without experience. Intensive practical simulations with copious levels of senior attorney feedback provide the best — and, historically, only — training model. Maybe the firm puts it together on-site. Maybe they send attorneys to an off-site camp like NITA. Meanwhile, law students should consider opportunities like the ML Advocacy Academy for these experiences. That said, litigation skills aren’t perfected in a week and constantly iterating training sessions with hired actors and partners devoting the energy and (lost billable) time to mentoring and feedback presents a logistical challenge for firms.
One that AI can now address.
AltaClaro has taken its experience building training tools for lawyers, and the captioning and transcription talents of Verbit.ai and launched DepoSim, harnessing AI to construct a deposition simulator. Artificial intelligence takes on the roles of deponent, opposing counsel, and court reporter in a vetted simulation. Armed with a closed universe of documentary evidence, users can ask questions, mark exhibits, and navigate objections while the AI composes a transcript for posterity. When the exercise ends, the system generates a detailed, rubric-based feedback report scoring the user across multiple deposition skills. If the user wants to run through the exercise again to polish up their mistakes, there’s no scheduling headaches bringing court reporters and actors and other lawyers into the office — they can just fire up the system again.
Users can even tweak the system to alter the deponent’s evasiveness and the defending attorney’s obstreperousness to practice different skills or just to keep the challenge fresh.
AltaClaro and Verbit gave me a hands-on demonstration last week. I haven’t dealt with a witness in years at this point, but sitting down with DepoSim felt like a blast from the past. With the advances in technology over the past couple years, the AI witness responds quickly and realistically and the opposing counsel threw in suitably annoying objections. Anyone committed to their kneejerk rejection of technology will spot the cracks that separate the exercise from a flesh and blood simulation, but none of these undermine its prowess at testing necessary skills. If anything, the way the robot can stick to the prep and never get tired only increases the challenge. That can only be a good thing.
Sadly, the technology fails to capture that Texas deposition energy.
Maybe the next update.
And don’t overlook the value of a computer simulation for experienced attorneys. A Biglaw litigator can go a fair amount of time between taking depositions. Despite a little rust setting in, a senior partner isn’t likely to schedule on-site training for themselves or book a trip to an organization’s boot camp. This tool gives them a low-impact option to brush up on their skills before the real thing.
From my experience, I got dinged on professionalism because I couldn’t stop snarking at the AI witness:
Joe: Is this your signature on the document?
Witness AI: I will have to look through the document to find my signature.
Joe: My guess is it’s on the last page, genius.
Honestly, fair criticism from the scoring rubric. Though in a real deposition, my approach would’ve totally rattled the witness. Or gotten me sanctioned.
AltaClaro and Verbit ran a beta Early Adopter Program with six firms — Orrick, K&L Gates, McDermott, Littler, Taft, and Brownstein Hyatt — that generated over 160 hours of testing. The numbers from that pilot are pretty telling: 97 percent of participants strongly agreed the tool is valuable for litigation training and 94 percent said they’d use it again.
One participating partner called the experience “frighteningly realistic,” adding that the feedback was “better feedback than I’ve received from attorneys. Both more comprehensive and more specific.” Another self-described “confirmed AI hater” among the associates admitted they could see themselves using it long-term.
At launch, the product only provides a straightforward civil deposition, but at my demonstration, they explained that they understand the potential to expand the available scenarios. As a technology, there’s no reason this couldn’t be adapted for unique situations like a 30(b)(6) or an expert witness. With a little tweaking, it could provide trial examination or even oral argument practice.
This is what the confirmed AI haters miss. For every task that AI risks disastrously messing up without focused human oversight, there are tasks that AI can tackle consistently well… and more efficiently. While the greater AI industry — and its supporting VC culture — love talking about replacing white collar workers, they don’t need to build robot lawyers to provide value. Crafting a tool that allows lawyers to easily train for depositions on their own schedule is a perfect use case.
And no worrying about hallucinations.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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