What can AI automate for a Litigation Counsel?

AI can help with: First-pass document review to sort for relevance and likely privilege; Summarizing long depositions, expert reports, and email threads; Building chronologies and witness fact charts from raw documents; Drafting routine discovery responses, correspondence, and motion first drafts; Checking citations and confirming whether cases are still good law.

What stays distinctly human for a Litigation Counsel?

Still human: Deciding case strategy and which arguments to actually run; Judging witness credibility and reading the room in depositions and at trial; Final calls on privilege, ethics, and what to produce or withhold; Negotiating with opposing counsel and managing the client relationship; Tailoring tone and persuasion for a specific judge or jury.

AI for Litigation Counsel: tools, prompts, and how the role is changing

The shift

How AI is changing the Litigation Counsel role

AI now handles the heavy lifting in document review, flagging relevant and privileged material across thousands of files faster than a manual first pass. It drafts first versions of motions, deposition outlines, and discovery responses, and it summarizes long depositions and expert reports in minutes. The result is more time for strategy, witness prep, and persuasive argument.

What AI can take off your plate

First-pass document review to sort for relevance and likely privilege
Summarizing long depositions, expert reports, and email threads
Building chronologies and witness fact charts from raw documents
Drafting routine discovery responses, correspondence, and motion first drafts
Checking citations and confirming whether cases are still good law

What stays distinctly human

Deciding case strategy and which arguments to actually run
Judging witness credibility and reading the room in depositions and at trial
Final calls on privilege, ethics, and what to produce or withhold
Negotiating with opposing counsel and managing the client relationship
Tailoring tone and persuasion for a specific judge or jury

Tools

Five AI tools for Litigation Counsels

Everlaw

A Litigation Counsel uses its predictive coding and clustering to prioritize relevant documents during discovery review and spot key custodians quickly.

Casetext CoCounsel

Counsel uses it to research case law, draft and check arguments, and review deposition transcripts for admissions and inconsistencies.

Relativity aiR

Counsel uses its generative AI review to classify documents for responsiveness and privilege and to summarize document sets during large productions.

Lexis+ AI

Counsel uses it to find on-point authority, check that cited cases are still good law, and pull together quick research memos with citations.

ChatGPT

Counsel uses it to outline briefs, rephrase arguments for clarity, draft routine correspondence, and turn rough notes into a clean first draft.

Prompts

Five prompts to try today

Paste these into Claude or ChatGPT and replace the bracketed parts with your own details.

1. Deposition outline

You are helping prepare for a deposition in a [type of case] matter. The witness is [witness role and relationship to the case]. Key disputed facts are: [list facts]. Draft a deposition outline organized by topic, with foundation questions before each substantive line, and flag documents I should have ready for each topic.

2. Summarize a transcript

Summarize this deposition transcript. Identify admissions helpful to my client, statements that contradict [other witness or document], any objections preserved, and topics where the witness was evasive. Cite the page and line for each point. Transcript: [paste].

3. Motion argument draft

Draft the argument section of a [motion type] under [jurisdiction] law. My position is [position]. The opposing argument is [their argument]. Use IRAC structure, leave bracketed placeholders for case citations, and note where I need to confirm the controlling standard.

4. Discovery response review

Review these requests for production and my draft responses. For each request, flag objections I should consider (overbreadth, privilege, proportionality), note where a response is incomplete, and suggest clearer objection language. Requests and responses: [paste].

5. Chronology builder

Build a chronology of events from these documents. List date, event, source document, and the people involved in a table, and flag gaps or conflicting dates. Documents: [paste or describe].

A day in your inbox

This is the kind of brief a Litigation Counsel gets, every weekday morning.

The Morning Current

Weekday morning

✦ Personalized for: Litigation Counsel

Today's Tool

Reviewing a key document set with Everlaw

Load the production into Everlaw and use clustering to group similar documents, then run predictive coding on a small coded sample to surface the most relevant files first. This turns a 5,000 document slog into a prioritized review you can finish in a fraction of the time.

Today's Prompt

Drafting the summary judgment standard

Use this prompt: Draft the legal standard section for a motion for summary judgment under [jurisdiction] Rule [rule number], including the burden-shifting framework, with bracketed placeholders for the controlling cases. Then verify every authority before filing.

Today's Trick

Always make the AI cite its source

When you ask for facts from a transcript or document set, require a page and line or document reference for each point. That makes verification fast and keeps a hallucinated fact from slipping into your brief.

AI for Litigation Counsels