Inna Castillo - June 1, 2025

Today’s litigators must navigate an ever-growing mountain of case data, documents, and transcripts.  One deposition transcript can easily stretch beyond 200 pages. Multiply that by the number of witnesses, and it’s no surprise that manually reviewing transcripts has become one of the most time-consuming tasks in case prep. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) solutions have long promised relief—but where do they actually deliver, and where should legal professionals still apply human judgment? Based on our experience supporting firms across remote depositions and arbitrations, here’s what we’ve seen working on the ground. 

Where AI Earns Its Keep: Structuring Verbatim Testimony into Actionable Material 

The most immediate benefit we’ve seen from AI-Powered Summaries is structural clarity. Lawyers don’t need every word. They need the right words—and some context around them. 

AI can help in three specific ways: 

1. Distilling transcripts to digestible length – A well-designed summary engine can reduce a 200-page transcript into 10–15 pages of the most relevant testimony. This isn’t just a time-saver—it helps teams align facts earlier in the case lifecycle. 
2. Segmenting long transcripts into themes – AI can tag recurring topics, like liability, damages, or procedural objections, and surface where they appear across a document. This makes navigation easier when you’re cross-referencing specific issues.
3. Tracking who said what – Automated systems can identify different speakers and extract statements by deponent, opposing counsel, or expert witness. For firms building arguments around timeline reconstruction, this saves hours.
4. Instant context with smart navigation – AI-Powered Summaries are prepended to the full transcript and include hyperlinked snippets that jump to exact locations in the document. For busy legal teams, this means faster review, easier fact-checking, and zero time wasted on scrolling. 

At Optima Juris, our AI-Powered Summaries follow this practical logic: flag factual assertions, identify legal issues raised, and break down testimony in chronological order. Anyone can easily get up to speed faster when given this type of scaffolded review. 

What AI Doesn’t Replace: Context, Nuance, and Strategic Thinking 

AI-powered outputs are not replacements for legal analysis. They don’t pick up on a witness’s hesitation, evasiveness, or sarcasm. Nor can they determine whether a statement actually matters to your case theory. 

Lawyers still need to interpret relevance. But what automation does offer is a clearer starting point. Rather than combing through a transcript line by line, teams can jump directly to what’s likely to be important. 

That shift—from manual review to strategic review—is what makes AI-Powered Summaries worth integrating. Not because they do your thinking for you, but because they clear space for thinking. 

The Role of Tech in the Current Litigation Support 

As virtual proceedings and remote depositions become the norm, the demand for efficient, secure, and accessible support tools has increased. But tech adoption in the legal field still hinges on trust and usability. 

What we’ve learned at Optima Juris is that tools don’t need to be flashy. They need to work. That means: 

• Fast and more cost-effective delivery without compromising transcript integrity 

• Reliable formatting that legal teams can plug into their workflows without additional training or onboarding 

• Optional customization depending on the practice area or use case 

The value isn’t in the novelty—it’s in the consistency of insight they enable. 

What Legal Teams Should Ask Before Adopting AI-Powered Summaries 

If you’re evaluating automated tools to support deposition review, here are three questions we recommend asking: 

1. What’s the output format, and how usable is it in your current system? 
2. Can the tool help junior associates surface key content faster, without over-relying on senior review?
3. Does the tool make your internal collaboration easier—especially across teams or time zones? 

In an industry where time, accuracy, and clarity are non-negotiable, the question isn’t whether AI has a place in litigation support—it’s how to use it responsibly and effectively. When integrated with care, tools like AI-Powered Summaries won’t dilute the role of legal professionals—they’ll sharpen it. In reducing manual administrative tasks, Optima Juris’s AI-powered services give litigators back the one thing they’re always short on: time to think critically and advocate more effectively. 

To discover more about how our suite of services can benefit your firm, schedule a brief demo with us today.