The painstaking, tedious process of creating deposition summaries just catapulted into the age of generative AI. At Legalweek 2024, DISCO unveiled the newest product in our Cecilia generative AI-powered legal tech suite: Cecilia Deposition Summaries.
Our new solution grants lawyers fast analysis of witness testimony, powered by secure, state-of-the-art generative AI. Let’s break it down.
How to create a deposition summary without Cecilia (aka, the old, terrible way)
Let’s make this fun – pull out your phone and start a stopwatch. Start reading… now.
1. Preparation and review of the deposition transcript
You or someone on your legal team (usually a junior associate or paralegal), reads through the full transcript of the deposition – i.e., the verbatim record of all statements made during the deposition, with all the “likes” and “I mean”s in place.
Pay attention to detail! You’ve got to internalize the full context and nuance of the testimony.
2. Identify and highlight key information from the deposition transcript
As you thoroughly review the transcript, you highlight and note information that could influence the outcome of the case.
3. Categorize and organize highlighted information
Take your highlights and categorize them based on relevance to different aspects of the case. This organization is critical for creating a logical summary that’s easy to understand.
4. Create the deposition summary
In addition to summarizing the content, you’ll generally include an introduction to provide context, a concise report of any relevant testimony, and your categorized information, usually organized in sections or bullet points for easy navigation.
5. Review and edit the deposition summary
This can include cross-referencing the deposition summary with the full deposition transcript and other case documents, as well as making revisions.
6. Format and cite
Format the deposition summary according to your house style, and add citations to key lines or pages of the transcript for use in legal proceedings.
7. Send deposition review to case team
The lead attorney on the case (or a senior attorney) will likely use the summary in proceedings.
8. Store the completed deposition summary
…with the transcript and any notes or highlights you created. Ensure it can be retrieved and referenced easily throughout the case.
Time’s up! In the five minutes it took you to read through this process, Cecilia Deposition Summaries summarized 100 pages of testimony, with citations and links to relevant sections. 💁♀️
As a panelist noted at one of our Legalweek sessions, “How many hours have I paid associates to send a deposition summary? It's a short email and it's 27 billable hours?"
Not anymore.
Meet Cecilia Deposition Summaries, powered by generative AI
Cecilia Deposition Summaries allows users to upload deposition transcripts and automatically receive a complete summary in minutes, including links and citations.
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Where creating deposition summaries was once a time-intensive, meticulous process, Cecilia Deposition Summaries makes it easy – while eliminating the potential for human error and reducing operational costs.
Now, you can apply your legal knowledge, time, and energy where it matters, instead of pulling overnights with a highlighter.
Kevin Smith, DISCO’s Chief Product Officer, noted, “Generative AI is allowing us to improve legal workflows by giving lawyers a way to quickly understand and process long transcripts, eliminate cumbersome manual review, and enable legal teams to get to critical insights in depositions faster.”
Meet the rest of Cecilia AI: DISCO’s generative AI-powered solutions
Cecilia Deposition Summaries joins the rest of DISCO’s revolutionary suite of generative AI solutions. We’ve automated the tedious aspects of legal workflows so you can spend more time on what counts: actually practicing law.
DISCO’s Cecilia suite includes:
Cecilia Q&A 💬
What it is: Your in-platform AI fact expert. Cecilia Q&A is a chat interface in DISCO Ediscovery that can answer any factual question based on your case documents in minutes – with sources cited and linked.
Why it matters: Cecilia Q&A gives you powerful visibility into your case, allowing you to identify key hot documents in just minutes – so you can focus on building your case strategy.
Cecilia Timelines ⏳
What it is: Cecilia Timelines is your AI-powered timeline builder in DISCO Case Builder. Simply drag and drop your case documents into Cecilia Timelines, and it will automatically generate a legal timeline in minutes – with all sources cited and facts succinctly summarized.
Why it matters: Cecilia Timelines makes it trivially easy to create your timeline at the start of the matter, so you can understand your case narrative from the jump.
Cecilia Auto Review 🔍
What it is: Cecilia Auto Review is your solution for large-scale document review. Simply provide tag descriptions, like you would with human reviewers. You’ll receive tagged documents – with explanations for each and every tagging decision.
Why it matters: Cecilia Auto Review allows you to complete large-scale document review in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of manual review.
Create deposition summaries in minutes with DISCO
CPO Kevin Smith said it best in Business Wire: “We believe DISCO is well positioned to continue developing best-in-class AI products that can alleviate pain points and better equip lawyers to win their cases.”
Ready to experience the magic yourself? Talk to our team about what generative AI can do for you: Request a demo.
