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3. 2 Irell & Manella lawyers should be sanctioned…

Ethics

2 Irell & Manella lawyers should be sanctioned after witness ‘was tricked’ with altered document, special master says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 20, 2025, 3:02 pm CDT

An Irell & Manella associate who decided to alter a date on a schematic drawing to prove a point during a deposition should be sanctioned, along with a partner who missed an email revealing the plan, a special master has recommended.

The associate, Benjamin Manzin-Monnin, came up with the idea to show that such dates can be unreliable, according to the March 18 opinion by special master David Folsom. Manzin-Monnin questioned a witness about the document before revealing that it had been altered.

Law360 has the story.

Folsom noted that all lawyers from Irell & Manella attend in-house ethics seminars. Folson said Manzin-Monnin should be required to attend 30 additional hours of ethics courses, along with the partner he notified in an email chain, Jason Sheasby.

Folsom also recommended that Irell & Manella pay fees and costs incurred by the special master and defendant Samsung Electronics in connection with the sanctions motion. And he said Irell & Manella’s client, CogniPower, should lose an hour of trial time in its patent infringement case, filed against Samsung Electronics in federal court for the Eastern District of Texas.

The deposition witness was an executive at a company that, according to Samsung Electronics, had an invention that predates CogniPower’s patents, Law360 explains.

A law firm employee had advised Manzin-Monnin in September 2024 to “get clear directions” from a senior attorney regarding the “mocked up dates on evidence floating around.” Manzin-Monnin replied that he had emailed “Jason,” an apparent reference to Sheasby.

But Sheasby said he “missed” the email from Manzin-Monnin while acknowledging that it was his responsibility to read it.

In a declaration, Sheasby said during the deposition, Manzin-Monnin had shown the expert witness “the correct document, then later the altered version, and then immediately the correct and altered side by side, and then told the witness he altered on[e] of the documents.”

The witness “was tricked” and “obviously confused” by questions about the altered date, Folsom said in the opinion. The fact that Manzin-Monnin did not mark the altered document as an exhibit during the deposition “is immaterial,” Folsom said.

Sheasby said in the declaration Manzin-Monnin has been subject to “professional strictures” as a result of his behavior. In addition, the firm’s general counsel had scheduled a mandatory March 19 ethics seminar for all the firm’s attorneys to address the events and to “ensure that nothing of this nature happens again.”

Neither Manzin-Monnin nor Sheasby immediately responded to the ABA Journal’s email request for comment. Nor did a firm spokesperson immediately reply to a Journal email.

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Benchmark data can prove to be invaluable when making decisions about the future of your law firm. Understanding how others in the legal profession are using technology to streamline workflows and increase revenues can make all the difference.

That’s where the recently released 2025 Legal Industry Report from AffiniPay comes in. This report, published annually, offers insight into how legal professionals from firms of all sizes and practice areas are approaching and benefiting from technology adoption. Over 2,800 legal professionals were surveyed for this year’s survey, which covers a wide range of topics, including artificial intelligence adoption, financial management software choices and the continued shift to remote and hybrid work environments.

The data reveals notable trends surrounding legal professionals’ technology choices and outcomes, including how software adoption impacts firm profitability and how remote work choices are changing the landscape of law practice.

Increased interest in AI adoption

With generative AI continuing to make headlines, it’s not surprising that the data shows that interest in it has increased since last year’s report. For example, in 2024, 31% of legal professionals reported using generative AI tools for work, up from 27% in 2023.

Interestingly, the rate of adoption varied across firm size and practice areas. Immigration practitioners led generative AI usage, with 47% incorporating it into their daily workflows. Other practice areas, such as personal injury (37%), civil litigation (36%) and criminal law (28%), also reported high usage.

Despite the individual growth rates, the survey showed that legal-specific generative AI adoption at the firm level slowed slightly. Only 21% of firms reported using AI in 2024, down from 24% in 2023. This decline is likely due to firms being in the exploratory phase—testing AI tools in specific use cases or pilot programs, rather than fully integrating the technology. The overall sentiment shows that while AI is still being explored, many firms are taking a cautious and measured approach.

At the firm level, civil litigation firms reported the highest generative AI adoption rate, at 27%, followed by personal injury and family law firms, at 20% each. Trusts and estate firms and criminal law practices had lower adoption rates, at 18% each. Immigration firms reported the lowest adoption rate, at 17%.

Overall, the data shows that for those who have adopted generative AI tools, they are relying on them quite often. Among frequent users, 45% use AI daily, and 40% use it weekly. The most common tasks accomplished with it include drafting correspondence (54%), brainstorming ideas (47%), conducting general research (46%) and summarizing documents (39%).

Financial management tools for profitability and stability

Survey data also highlights how firms are increasingly adopting financial management software to improve financial workflows. In particular, legal-specific accounting and bookkeeping software has become a key tool for many firms. Respondents indicate that 37% of their firms have legal accounting software built into their firm’s practice management system, while 16% said it’s built into their firm’s billing software. Another 11% use software that is integrated with, rather than built into, their firm’s law practice management platform, and 16% reported adoption of a stand-alone legal accounting tool.

The survey data shows that legal accounting and bookkeeping tools have notably increased efficiency, with nearly 26% of firms reporting one to five hours reclaimed per month. Another 17% reduced workloads by six to 10 hours, 7% saved 15 or more hours each month, and 4% recovered a whopping 11 to 15 hours.

Another valuable tool for improving workflows is legal billing tools. The legal professionals surveyed (80%) relied on invoicing software, with 27% saving one to five hours per month, 16% saving six to 10 hours, and 12% saving 11 or more hours. The end benefit of the time saved using legal accounting and billing tools? Significant gains in productivity and profitability.

Growth of online payment processing

The report also highlights the increasing adoption of online payment processing software, with 82% of respondents sharing that their firms accept credit and/or debit card payments in 2024, up from 78% in 2023. This adoption has resulted in time savings and financial impact. More than a third of respondents (35%) saved between one to five hours per month using online payment systems, while 14% saved six to 10 hours. Also of note is that firms accepting card payments reported improved collection rates, with 59% of firms noting that their collection rates increased “somewhat more” or “significantly more” each month.

The growing use of online payment solutions is indicative of a broader trend toward automating tedious and time-consuming administrative tasks that were previously manual. By offering more payment options, firms are not only improving their financial stability but also freeing up time to devote to more client work and firm growth.

Remote and hybrid work adoption

Finally, the report addressed remote and hybrid work, which has become a staple for many firms. About three-fourths of survey respondents reported using cloud-based remote working tools, with videoconferencing (79%), e-signatures (78%) and e-filing (76%) ranking the highest.

Additionally, the data showed that the hybrid work model has gained traction in the legal profession. According to the survey results, 28% of firms operate fully in office, while 21% use hybrid schedules for all team members. Another 19% of firms are fully remote, and 18% adopt hybrid schedules for some staff members.

Just as remote and hybrid work continued post-pandemic, so too did participation in virtual court proceedings, with 34% of respondents attending virtual hearings a few times per month, 21% a few times per week and 5% every day.

Even so, preferences for in-person appearances remain strong, especially for certain types of proceedings. Half of respondents prefer to avoid virtual hearings, followed by jury trials (45%), bench trials (43%) and motion arguments (39%). However, practice areas significantly impacted these results.

For example, trust and estate professionals were more likely than the overall average to prefer virtual litigation proceedings, with only 36% opting for in-person jury trials, followed by bench trials (35%) and motion arguments and depositions (at 30% each).

In contrast, civil litigation and personal injury lawyers showed a stronger preference for in-person proceedings, with 56% each favoring jury trials, and 46% and 49%, respectively, choosing in-person depositions. Similarly, criminal law practitioners also leaned toward in-person proceedings, with 59% preferring hearings, 58% jury trials, 55% bench trials and 49% motion arguments.

Immigration lawyers, on the other hand, were less likely to prefer in-person litigation, with below-average preferences for motion arguments (26%), status conferences (22%) and depositions (19%).

In conclusion

The AffiniPay 2025 Legal Industry Report highlights a range of preferences and trends within the legal profession. While generative AI remains a focus, the data shows that firms are also adopting proven cloud-based technologies for billing, payments and remote work, highlighting an increasing reliance on specialized tools that enhance efficiency, save time and improve financial outcomes.

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Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York-based attorney, author and journalist, and she is the principal legal insight strategist at MyCase, a company that offers legal practice management software for small firms. She is the nationally recognized author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers and is co-author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, both published by the American Bar Association. She writes regular columns for ABAJournal.com and Above the Law, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @nikiblack, or she can be reached at [email protected].

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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3. Ex-Wisconsin justice who led election review…

Ethics

Ex-Wisconsin justice who led election review should be compelled to sit for deposition in ethics case, motion says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 6, 2025, 10:00 am CST

A former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice should be compelled to sit for a deposition before a disciplinary review board, a lawyer for the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation argued in a Feb. 28 motion.

The motion asks the Wisconsin Supreme Court to require Justice Michael J. Gableman’s appearance March 20 and 21 and to state that a failure to appear will result in his admission to the facts in a disciplinary complaint. Filed in November 2024, the complaint alleges ethical misconduct in Gableman’s investigation of the 2020 election for the Wisconsin State Assembly.

The motion to compel was filed after Gableman said through his attorney he would not show up for a scheduled February deposition “after much consideration, including Fifth Amendment concerns.”

WisPolitics.com and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered the motion to compel.

Gableman was initially hired by Republican Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to help a legislative committee gather facts about how recent elections were conducted in Wisconsin and to suggest possible legislative changes. Gableman’s duties were later expanded, and he was named a special counsel. He was fired in August 2022.

Gableman included in an appendix to his legislative report his legal opinion that the state could decertify the results of Wisconsin’s 2020 general election in which former President Joe Biden was declared the winner.

Gableman’s election review did not find significant fraud, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“Taxpayers paid more than $2.3 million for the investigation,” the newspaper reports, “which yielded a steady drumbeat of explosive court hearings and rulings in lawsuits over his desire to jail election officials and mayors who refused to be interviewed behind closed doors, and his decision to ignore requests from the public for records related to his probe.”

Besides serving as a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, Gableman was a former prosecutor, a circuit court judge and an adjunct law professor teaching professional responsibility. Before agreeing to represent the committee, he worked in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for the first Trump administration.

He had “by his own admission, no understanding of how Wisconsin elections worked,” the ethics complaint says.

Part of the ethics complaint concerns Gableman’s quest for information from the cities of Madison, Wisconsin, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, and their mayors. After issuing subpoenas to the mayors, Gableman negotiated agreements that made their appearances unnecessary, the complaint says.

Yet Gableman allegedly failed to tell the legislative committee about the agreements or about his receipt of thousands of pages of documents from the cities. He also falsely said he issued writs of attachment against the mayors because they “failed without reason or excuse to appear for their depositions,” the ethics complaint alleges.

Gableman is also accused of including false statements in the petitions for writs of attachment when he claimed that the two mayors had failed to appear for a deposition “without justification.”

Another part of the complaint alleges that Gableman made improper comments during and after a court hearing on a public interest group’s public-records request. Gableman was called to testify.

Gableman allegedly criticized Judge Frank Remington of Dane County, Wisconsin, who was presiding, instead of responding to questions. He claimed that Remington “has abandoned his role as a neutral magistrate” and later said, “You want to put me in jail, Judge Remington? I’m not gonna be railroaded.”

In a later June 2022 decision and order, Remington said Gableman made his accusations in a “sneering” fashion, raised his voice and pointed and shook his finger at the judge.

During a hearing recess, when the microphone was still live, Gableman allegedly made remarks that “demeaned and belittled opposing counsel by making allegations of improper collusion with the court and by portraying her as an incompetent lawyer whose only role was to aid Judge Remington in his bias,” the ethics complaint says.

After the hearing, in remarks to the press, Gableman again alleged that Remington had abandoned his neutral role.

“The deck was stacked,” he told reporters.

Another allegation in the complaint is that Gableman wrongly revealed information about his representation of the state Assembly committee as a guest on video broadcasts organized by Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow and a supporter of President Donald Trump.

Gableman said he supported an effort to recall Vos, that Vos did not want a serious investigation, and that Vos was a “serial liar who is interested only in his personal monetary financial gain.”

To support his allegation that Vos didn’t want a serious investigation, Gableman described discussions with Vos and staff members, revealing information related to the representation, the ethics complaint says.

The motion to compel says Gableman has a right to refuse to answer deposition questions when he has reasonable cause to think that his answers could expose him to criminal liability, but he does not have the right not to appear for the deposition.

Gableman is represented by lawyer Peyton B. Engel, who did not immediately reply to the ABA Journal’s request for comment via email and voicemail.

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The nation’s largest federation of labor unions on Thursday won a significant victory against the Trump administration in their efforts to peel back the curtain on the activities of the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

In a 16-page order, U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, ordered four members of the “opaque” cost-cutting group to sit for depositions on a series of “properly-scoped topics.” The under-oath testimony will total eight hours, the court ruled.

The judge’s move to enforce a certain measure of transparency on DOGE comes in response to an expedited discovery request from the AFL-CIO, several other unions, and a progressive economic think tank. Filed earlier this month, the underlying lawsuit aims to bar the often-evasively-defined group from accessing nonpublic Department of Labor information and accuses DOGE of violating “multiple laws.”

“Although this in an Administrative Procedure Act case, the discovery plaintiffs request is proper because it is necessary to determine the contours of the agency actions that plaintiffs challenge,” the order reads. “The limited expedited discovery plaintiffs request is also reasonable.”

Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Greg Hong, the co-founder and CEO of Steno, a tech-enabled provider of legal support and court reporting services.

They discussed the industry trends driving the need for court reporting and litigation support, creating a competitive advantage in the current market, and the evolution of the legal support market.

Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and the genesis of Steno.

Greg Hong: I’ve participated in several two-sided marketplaces. Out of school, I traded stock for hedge funds and went pretty far down the finance path before realizing I’d rather be building businesses than valuing them. From there, I worked in ad tech and ran a restaurant technology company that directly competed with OpenTable. I ultimately sold that business to Resy and American Express. We had some litigation in that sale, and my co-founder at Steno, Dylan Ruga, represented us successfully. We won that case on summary judgment, but I had my deposition taken, so he and I became good friends. Afterward, he proposed starting a court reporting business with me and a third co-founder, Dan Anderson, now our chief technology officer, when we saw an opportunity to add unique technology to a legacy agency model and structure it more like a marketplace.

Ari Kaplan: What trends in the legal industry do you see driving the need for court reporting and litigation services?

Greg Hong: The volume of litigation continues to grow year over year, but the court reporting industry has become a commoditized service market, and our competitors use decades-old playbooks. We are focused on our customers’ needs and use their feedback to design technology and financial options that directly improve their experience and workflows. For law firms, this means that we do the basics very well. We reply to our customers with substantive responses in 10 minutes on average, while others respond in hours or days, and we hardly ever miss covering a job. We pair that with the benefits of unique technology, like Transcript Genius, our new AI offering, or Steno Connect for Zoom, our Zoom app, so we really make it easier for attorneys to take depositions or more thoughtfully consume the post-deposition content that gets delivered to them in their transcripts.

Ari Kaplan: What traditional court reporting and litigation services do you offer, and how do you tech-enable those activities to distinguish Steno’s approach?

Greg Hong: We offer court reporting, videography, interpreters and conference room sourcing. We are also starting to provide service-of-process and e-filing assistance. We want to become a one-stop shop for our clients. Today, court reporting is about staffing. Law firms are looking for a provider, and that is often the end of the transaction. In addition to services, we offer unique technology and a dashboard allowing our customers to search their entire repository of Steno transcripts. We also have unique integrations with case management providers, like Clio and Litify.

Ari Kaplan: How do you stay ahead of the market, given that even traditional court reporting firms are starting to offer broader services?

Greg Hong: We take the best-in-class technology from outside the legal world and bring it to bear within this industry. When we transitioned from in-person depositions being the de facto standard before the pandemic to remote depositions becoming the norm after mid-2020, we built remote deposition offerings to accommodate our clients. We continue quickly bringing new ideas to market because we maintain an in-house technology team. At the same time, our competitors often leverage third-party providers to build their technology solutions or use something off the shelf. We also package our tools, so that attorneys can easily consume them. My co-founder is a practicing attorney running a firm with 11 lawyers, so before we release anything, we pilot it in his office for feedback, rather than simply affixing a label and charging for it. That is not the way to build a long-term customer relationship.

Ari Kaplan: How much human stenography occurs in a typical matter, and how much technology is involved?

Greg Hong: We only offer human court reporters, the de facto gold standard. The technology is supplemental. When we talk about our AI offering, it is applied on a post-deposition basis. A firm expects a court reporting agency to deliver a transcript following a deposition, but we allow the reader to interact with that document more thoughtfully, using the power of a large language model to interrogate that record. For example, our technology can help a lawyer instantly summarize a deposition and highlight the areas that indicate liability, with citations to the supporting testimony. Or if a practitioner is taking a deposition on Zoom and needs to share documents, our proprietary app makes that process as seamless as sliding a file across a conference room table. We are trying to emulate the real-world deposition experience even when virtual.

Ari Kaplan: How do you leverage your success in court reporting into other areas of litigation services?

Greg Hong: We see NPS scores well into the ’80s, indicating that our customers like working with us. They often provide unsolicited positive feedback. Doing an excellent job is the easy starting point for expansion. Once you’ve built that relationship and rapport, customers will trust you with e-filing or service of process tasks. They give us that shot, and we exceed expectations. That is how we have been able to grow.

Ari Kaplan: How do you see the legal support market evolving?

Greg Hong: Over the next few years, there will be consolidation across all of these service offerings. Law firms engaging in litigation today use several different service providers, from medical records support and e-filing to service-of-process and depositions, which can be challenging to manage. Many attorneys would prefer to combine those services, especially when they offer thoughtful integrations into their case management platforms. If all their records could sit magically in a single application, it would offer a much more cohesive experience. Adding unique, best-in-class technologies also transforms legal support, allowing legal teams to more efficiently and thoughtfully litigate their cases.

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Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.

Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

This year was one of confounding contradictions. Technology advanced quickly—faster than ever before—with legal technology companies updating their software at rates never before seen in a race to include generative artificial intelligence capabilities. However, despite the rapid deployments, the integration of AI was often surface-level, with deeper integrations planned but not yet achieved.

Development hurdles were numerous. One challenge was overcoming the significant complexities involved in leveraging accessible data to provide in-depth analytics. Another issue was the high costs associated with relying on mainstream generative AI models, such as OpenAI and Anthropic’s Claude, especially when performing complicated data analyses.

Last year, legal professionals and law firms initially implemented AI at a pace that far surpassed the adoption rates of the technologies that preceded it, such as social media, mobile computing and cloud computing. However, study after study showed that in 2024, usage numbers stabilized, although interest in the potential of generative AI remained high.

The initial uptick in usage happened despite the many ethical challenges presented by AI, including confidentiality, biases, “hallucinations” and more. In response, state bars took notice and issued AI guidance at a record pace in an attempt to assist lawyers with navigating the many roadblocks encountered when using these tools in their firms.

Throughout it all, I tracked AI software trends and offered advice on choosing legal software, most of which was AI-enabled. Traditional legal software categories were also updated, providing legal professionals with new features designed to streamline practice and matter management and automate document creation. Each month I offered an overview of a software tool, so if you’re in the market for new tech for your firm, there’s a good chance one of my 2024 roundups includes the information you need.

January: Legal tech survey results

The legal industry saw rapid changes in 2024, driven by fast-moving advancements in tech, including generative AI. In January, I covered the LawPay and MyCase Legal Industry Report 2024, which offers valuable insights into how firms are adapting, covering key topics, such as AI adoption, common technology implementation challenges, and the software relied on to improve efficiency and profitability. The data showed that in late 2023, 27% of respondents reported that they personally used generative AI tools for work-related purposes, and 24% shared that their firms had adopted legal-specific generative AI software. More than half of those surveyed (53%) reported that it increased efficiency somewhat, and for 24%, it increased significantly. Other topics covered included common tech implementation challenges and the software relied on to improve efficiency and profitability. Whether you’re a solo lawyer or managing a large firm, this report provides practical advice on outsourcing, payment flexibility and streamlining operations.

February: Document automation software

If your firm’s practice areas are document-intensive, recent advancements in document automation are worth exploring. As I explained in February’s article, this software has evolved significantly—now offering faster, simpler document assembly. Additionally, strategic acquisitions by legal tech companies have integrated advanced automation features into law practice management platforms, making it easier than ever to streamline document creation workflows. Looking ahead, generative AI will further improve document assembly by analyzing legal language and the subtle nuances in context, simplifying drafting and reducing the need for manual editing. By automating the routine tasks involved in creating complex documents, these advancements will save time and increase productivity.

March: AI-powered legal research

Generative AI has dramatically impacted legal research, with tools such as GPT-4 now playing a prominent role. When I last covered legal research tools in 2019, AI was being used to refine search results, but generative AI was not yet available. Today, it’s embedded in most legal research platforms, offering an extremely intuitive interface with enhanced capabilities. However, it is not without its challenges, including hallucination risks. My article from March explores some of the top legal research products that include generative AI features. Whether you’re a seasoned lawyer or new to AI, this guide will help you choose the right AI-enhanced legal research platform for your firm.

April: Matter management tools for in-house teams

With in-house legal teams facing increasing demands, efficient workflows are essential. In April, I discussed how matter management software addresses this need by streamlining processes from case intake to resolution while improving collaboration with internal teams and outside counsel. The right platform can enhance efficiency, mitigate risks and optimize operations, but selecting the right tool for your team’s unique needs isn’t always easy. This article provides an overview of matter management software for small-size to medium-size legal departments, highlighting key features, such as e-billing, workflow automation, contract management and AI capabilities.

May: AI brief drafting and analysis tools

Brief drafting and analysis is another area impacted by generative AI. Many brief writing platforms now include features to assist with editing, summarizing and drafting documents, and they also enable the analysis of lengthy materials, such as trial transcripts or appellate briefs. These tools are particularly useful for litigators, helping them focus on more complex tasks, such as developing legal strategies and crafting arguments. May’s article focuses on AI-powered brief writing and analysis software developed for solo and small firms. In it, I outline key features to look for, explore available tools, and discuss the importance of integration with a firm’s existing document creation software to ensure a seamless transition and uninterrupted workflows.

June: AI-supported pretrial litigation

Pretrial litigation often involves repetitive and time-consuming tasks, especially during the discovery phase. AI tools, particularly those that incorporate generative AI, are beginning to address these inefficiencies. By streamlining the drafting and analysis of pleadings, discovery requests and responses, these tools help reduce the time spent on routine work, allowing litigators to focus on high-impact, strategic work. This article from June reviews AI tools for managing pretrial discovery and offers guidance on selecting the right software for your firm. Issues to consider include identifying workflow challenges, assessing the capabilities of existing tools, and considering integration options with current systems.

July: Leveraging AI in law practice management software

Law practice management platforms serve as the business foundation for many firms, streamlining workflows, reducing administrative tasks, and improving productivity and profitability. Adding generative AI features to LPM tools enhances efficiency by automating routine tasks, such as time tracking, invoicing, document drafting, summarization and case updates, freeing legal professionals to focus on higher-value work. In July’s article, I review recent AI advancements in LPM software, including key announcements and feature releases from leading providers. I also offer guidance on factors to consider when adopting AI tools, such as functionality, pricing and the importance of user-friendly integrations with existing systems.

August: ILTACON 2024’s AI hard sell

This year’s ILTACON in Nashville, Tennessee, offered flashy but unproven promises. Generative AI dominated the conversation, with vendors discussing ambitious visions of the future but often showcasing tools in beta or early development mode via controlled demos. Overall, however, as I explained in August, it was an innovative showcase of legal tech potential with several key themes emerging that suggest where the industry is headed. First, generative AI is quickly becoming the new interface for legal tech, greatly improving how professionals interact with their firm’s software and data. Also, competition among vendors was fierce, driving innovation and new features. While much of the AI implementation remained surface-level, the promise of robust, impactful AI development was on the horizon.

September: AI-enabled deposition summaries and analysis

Deposition summarization and analysis is another area in which generative AI is changing the way that legal professionals interact with their software. AI deposition tools use advanced algorithms to review transcripts, identify critical themes, flag inconsistencies and extract key insights. By automating these time-consuming tasks, this software enables attorneys to focus on strategic trial preparation, rather than on mundane, time-consuming transcript review. This September article explores the benefits of these tools and offers guidance on selecting the right software for your litigation needs.

October: The next generation of litigation analytics

Finally, in last month’s article, I cover how litigation analytics software has evolved significantly since I last wrote about it in 2020. By analyzing court records and decisions, filings and other datasets, this software provides insights into judges, case outcomes, attorneys and more, enabling litigators to develop informed, data-backed strategies. Some companies have rolled out generative AI integrations that offer an intuitive conversational interface that enhances analytics functions, generating summaries, predicting outcomes and offering strategic recommendations based on historical trends. Using this information, legal teams can identify patterns in rulings, forecast motion success and optimize case strategies.

Reflecting on 2024, looking ahead

Reflecting on the past year, legal tech’s rapid evolution was driven by the integration of generative AI combined with the steady refinement of core practice management tools. This year had remarkable innovation and significant growing pains, as firms balanced the appeal of cutting-edge technologies with the realities of ethical implementation.

Looking ahead, the momentum from 2024 offers a strong foundation for further innovation. Forward-thinking legal professionals who approach emerging technologies with strategic planning and an open mindset will be best positioned to thrive. Whether through AI-driven analytics, enhanced case management systems or a blend of both, the opportunities to streamline workflows and provide superior client service have never been greater.

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Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York-based attorney, author and journalist, and she is the principal legal insight strategist at MyCase, a company that offers legal practice management software for small firms. She is the nationally recognized author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers and is co-author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, both published by the American Bar Association. She writes regular columns for ABAJournal.com and Above the Law, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @nikiblack, or she can be reached at [email protected].

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

When Filevine unveiled its Depo Copilot in September, it sent shock waves among those in the legal technology sphere.

The generative artificial intelligence tool is not just designed to transcribe depositions. It looks for inconsistencies. It suggests questions to ask. It analyzes the transcript in real time to see whether there are issues that have to be cleared up or areas of weakness to address.

In other words, it’s like having another attorney in the room—only one who’s capable of digesting large amounts of data and analyzing it quickly.

In this episode of the Legal Rebels Podcast, Alex McLaughlin, the vice president of product at Filevine, talks to the ABA Journal’s Victor Li about about Depo CoPilot, as well as issues relating to generative AI and what it means for the future of depositions. Filevine is a software company specializing in cloud-based case management for the legal industry.