The platforms, including Verbit's newly released Legal Visor and the core paid tools from Deposely, transcribe depositions in real time and detect inconsistencies with testimonies and evidence. Vendors say these advancements are game changers that give litigators immediate insights during depositions, such as follow-up questions to ask witnesses and experts based on their testimonies.
But questions are popping up about whether these tools might cross the line into the unlicensed practice of law.
Jayne Reardon, a partner at FisherBroyles LLP and a legal ethics expert, said AI tools giving lawyers questions to ask might undermine or conflict with an attorney's obligations under the American Bar Association's Model Rule 2.1, which states that lawyers should render their "independent professional judgment."
"Arguably, they are not rendering their independent professional judgment," Reardon told Law360 Pulse. "They're just a mouthpiece for the AI tool, which would not be ethical."
Verbit, an AI transcription vendor that released a deposition tool in March, pushes back on the assumption that its technology violates attorney obligations and believes it created a legally sound solution.
Verbit Chief Legal Officer JP Son told Law360 Pulse that while some attorneys might raise this as an ethical issue and potentially challenge the validity of the technology in court, many lawyers are already using different generative AI tools to strengthen briefs and arguments.
"The genie is out of the bottle," Son said. "I'm not seeing this as something that should be stopped or could be stopped."
Verbit claims it received positive feedback from several judges during the beta testing of its Legal Visor tool, but declined to name the judges to Law360 Pulse.
Son said that attorneys using the AI tool should disclose its use in the deposition notice to the other party. He also said that no rule from any legal association currently exists about these specific tools.
Reardon agreed that the rules of professional conduct might be outdated and need to be reexamined, but she could foresee a bar or state court potentially questioning whether the tool crosses into the unauthorized practice of law.
"I think that lawyers should be aware that some of these tools could arguably constitute the unauthorized practice of law and a lawyer could be disciplined for using them," Reardon said.
Mitchell Kossoris, co-founder of Deposely, a legal tech startup that launched a similar real-time AI deposition tool in early 2025, told Law360 Pulse that the AI does not ask questions during the deposition. Instead, it gives suggestions and the lawyer has to decide to act on them.
"We're not practicing law," Kossoris said. "We're just acting as an assistive technology."
For example, Deposely's AI tool might pick up on an inconsistency or an incomplete answer from a witness in a deposition and give the attorney follow-up questions to ask.
"As long as the attorney is having a reasonable ability to make a decision on what's coming out of the tool, they're still the decision maker," Kossoris said. "The tool is not the decision maker."
Another potential ethical issue involves client confidentiality. Craig Brodsky, a partner at Goodell DeVries Leech & Dann LLP and a legal ethics expert, told Law360 Pulse that he is concerned that information provided to an AI service during a live deposition could continue to be used again in the future without permission.
"That could be a confidentiality issue, and it could create a conflict issue because it could be information that could be used against my client," Brodsky said.
While Brodsky praised AI tools for giving attorneys better analysis, he wants to ensure they are used within the confines of the rules.
"We as lawyers have an ethical obligation to stay on top of technology and use technology to our clients' benefit," Brodsky said. "But we also have an obligation to be wary of technology and understand how its pitfalls could be problematic."
To ensure that client data is protected, Verbit said its Legal Visor deposition transcript is stored on its platform with enterprise-grade security and meets compliance requirements. The company said it maintains strict separation of data between Legal Visor customer accounts and does not use customer data to train its AI models. Customer data is contained in the customer's private data account.
Deposely said transcripts are stored just for users and only lawyers have access to their account, similar to other cloud-based systems. The company does not access the data and doesn't let other users access private data from another customer, and the data is not used to train the AI models.
Technology Deep Dive
Beyond the new legal tools that have just launched, some attorneys are independently turning to general AI platforms for assistance in depositions.
Nicholas I. Myers, an attorney at Rafii & Associates PC, told Law360 Pulse that he has been using AI, including Anthropic's Claude, in depositions since the beginning of 2025.
Myers could not say how many depositions he used AI in, but he typically uses Claude in real time to corroborate testimony. He also uploads his deposition outline to consult with the AI tool to see what might be relevant.
"It's not replacing my professional abilities," Myers said. "I want to enhance them and to augment them."
Although Myers is feeding information into the AI tool during the deposition, he said he is not relying on AI for transcription due to potential ethical concerns.
Verbit's Legal Visor tool uses different large language models, which are used to power generative AI platforms, including Claude for live insights. It also uses its proprietary technology and models that the company claims provide more accurate outputs.
Matan Barak, director of product management at Verbit, said the company created the tool in beta with law firms acting as design partners. One of those law firms was Fisher Phillips.
Evan Shenkman, chief knowledge and innovation officer at Fisher Phillips, told Law360 Pulse that the firm used Legal Visor in a deposition in February. He declined to disclose information about the deposition due to client confidentiality obligations.
"It provided a real-time transcript and real-time insights from the testimony itself, and the attorney found it very helpful," Shenkman said. "We did not have the opportunity to pretrain it on case documents in that first instance, so we could not deploy that functionality. But we are looking at many more occasions to use the tool."
Barak said another boutique firm used Legal Visor in a criminal defense matter but declined to name the firm.
Verbit claims that the March launch of Legal Visor resulted in a lot of buzz from attendees at Legalweek and the ABA Techshow, and that more firms want to test the tool.
While other AI deposition tools exist, Barak said Verbit stands out because it is an established company with automatic speech recognition software and its transcription capabilities are foundational to its offerings.
"The level of automatic speech recognition that we are providing, including preparation by boosting the accuracy using the case document, is something really unique," Barak said.
Kossoris said Deposely stands out because it also provides AI tools for preparation before the deposition. For example, attorneys can upload case materials and the AI can prepare an outline with questions.
Deposely also uses different large language models to power its tool.
Since Deposely launched its tool in early 2025, Kossoris said the startup has received positive reactions from the industry. Kossoris claims that one Mid-Law firm has already been onboarded to use the live deposition tool, but declined to name the firm.
What's next for these live AI deposition tools?
Verbit plans to add more insights into its Legal Visor platform, allowing users to create a timeline of events. It is also working on integrations with legal tech platforms in e-discovery and case management.
For Deposely, Kossoris said the startup is trying to add new features, including some that attorneys can use after the deposition.
"We're trying to build in ways that lower the barrier to getting this into their workflow," Kossoris said.
--Editing by Robert Rudinger.
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