AI for litigation firms
If the firm is litigation only, a list of practice areas is the wrong question. The work runs in phases, and the volume lands in two of them. This is what a private deployment does across a contested matter, from first read to appeal, running inside your own network.
6 phases 24 use cases
Intake and case assessment
Deciding what a matter is worth before the costs start.
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First read of a new file
A summary of the dispute from whatever arrives: contracts, correspondence, the complaint, the client’s own account. Every point cites the document it came from, so the associate is checking a reference rather than re-reading the box.
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Conflicts against your own matter list
Parties, affiliates and counsel checked against every matter the firm has run, not just the ones someone remembered to enter in the conflicts system.
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Limitations and deadlines
The limitation period for each claim pleaded, with the statute it comes from, flagged against the dates already in the file.
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Early exposure estimate
What comparable matters in the firm’s own history settled or resolved at, and which facts in this one make it unlike them.
Discovery and document review
The phase where volume, not difficulty, is the problem.
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First-pass classification
Responsive, non-responsive and needs-a-human across a production set, with the reasoning recorded for every call so a partner can audit a sample rather than take it on trust.
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Privilege flagging
Candidate privileged material surfaced with the basis for the flag. It is a first pass that narrows what a lawyer has to read, and it is never the final call on privilege.
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Contradictions across the set
Where a document says something a different document contradicts, both passages returned side by side with their locations.
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What is missing
Gaps in a production: a thread that stops mid-conversation, an attachment referenced but not produced, a date range thinner than the ones either side of it.
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Discovery requests and responses
Requests drafted against the issues actually pleaded, and incoming requests mapped to the documents in the file that answer them.
Depositions and transcripts
Where page-and-line accuracy is the whole job.
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Transcript summaries with page and line
Admissions, key testimony and topics covered, each carrying the page and line it came from. A summary a litigator cannot cite back is a summary they have to re-verify, which is not a saving.
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Contradictions against the record
Testimony set against the witness’s own prior statements, their declarations and the documents, with both passages shown rather than asserted.
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Deposition preparation
An outline built from what the documents already establish about a witness, including the exhibits to put in front of them and the order that makes sense.
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Designations and counter-designations
Candidate designations pulled from a transcript against the issues they go to, ready for a human to cut.
Motion practice and briefing
Drafting from your own precedent rather than a template library.
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Drafting from the firm’s own briefs
Motions and responses built from language the firm has filed and stood behind before, not from generic precedent that still has to be rewritten into the firm’s voice.
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Research with the passage attached
Authority returned with the paragraph it relied on, so the associate verifies the proposition before it goes in the brief. Nothing is cited that the system cannot show you.
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Record cites for a statement of facts
Every factual assertion matched to the exhibit, deposition page or declaration that supports it, and anything unsupported flagged before filing.
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Opposition analysis
The other side’s brief broken into the arguments made, the authority relied on, and which of those your own record already answers.
Trial preparation
Getting a year of file into a form a trial team can carry.
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Chronologies from the whole file
One timeline assembled from documents, transcripts and correspondence, filterable by party or by issue, with every entry sourced.
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Exhibit lists and demonstratives
Exhibit lists built from what is actually cited in the briefing, and charts drawn from the underlying figures rather than retyped from them.
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Witness files
Everything the record contains about one witness in a single place: their testimony, the documents they authored or received, and where others contradict them.
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Cross-examination outlines
Draft outlines built from the contradictions already identified, each line carrying the citation that supports it.
Appeals
Reading a record you may not have made yourself.
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Issue spotting in the record
Preserved objections, evidentiary rulings and jury instructions that could support an appeal, with the page and line for each and a note where preservation looks thin.
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Record citation checking
Every citation in a draft brief checked against the record it points at, which is the error that costs credibility with a panel.
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Standard of review
The standard that governs each issue raised, with the authority that sets it.
Two things litigators ask first
- Can I cite it?
- Every summary, contradiction and authority carries the location it came from: the page and line, the exhibit, the paragraph. A summary you cannot cite back is one you have to re-verify, and that is not a saving.
- What happens when someone asks how it reached that?
- Every generation records who asked, what was retrieved and which passages the answer relied on. That is the same audit trail described on the security page, and it is the reason a first-pass privilege call can be sampled by a partner rather than taken on trust.
First-pass classification and privilege flagging narrow what a lawyer has to read. Neither is the final call on privilege or responsiveness, and the page does not claim otherwise.
By practice area
These carry the most litigation material if you work in one substantive area rather than across several.