The short answer
Ask for the summary as a digest (one line per point, each with its page and line) and check every cite against the transcript. Legal Matters does both: add the transcript to a matter, and each point the witness made comes back with its cite already checked against the lines it was written from. You still read the summaries: a check can say a cite is right, not that a summary is fair.
Why AI deposition summaries go wrong
Transcripts are long and repetitive, and a model summarising one tends to cite by feel. The typical failure isn’t an invented line; it’s a real page and line that holds different testimony, a range that runs past the end of a page, or a name that the witness never said on the lines cited. Each of those looks perfectly plausible in a digest and is the kind of cite that gets copied into a brief unchanged.
What gets checked, for every line of the digest
- The lines exist and are among the lines the model was given, and a range runs forwards.
- Quoted words are on the lines cited, or the line after.
- Every name, figure and date in the summary is on the lines cited or within two lines of them. This is the check that catches a cite pointing at the wrong testimony.
- A range over three pages is marked for a look.
A line that fails is shown in red with the check it failed, marked [CHECK] in every copy you take, and can be removed. Pages the model read but wrote nothing about are named, so a gap isn’t silent.
How to do it
- Open Legal Matters and make a matter.
- In Documents, add the transcript: a PDF with a text layer, or a text file, of a full-page transcript. A scanned one can be read on your device first; the page offers it.
- In Drafts, find the transcript under Deposition digests and start it.
- Read it by page or by topic, then copy it, or download it as a .csv or a Word table.
A long transcript is done in parts and saved after each one, so you can stop, close the tab, and continue later from the last line covered.
Where it runs
- In your browser: the model runs on your computer and nothing leaves it. The model is small, so expect a less complete digest: more lines marked, and more pages with no entry.
- On our hardware: a far larger model, and a fuller digest. The transcript lines are encrypted in your browser, sent to hardware we own, and not written down there.
A matter can be set so its work never leaves your device, and then only the browser is offered.
What a check can’t tell you
Whether a summary is fair. A line can cite exactly the right testimony and still overstate it: “no other managers were restructured” where the witness said “Not that I know of”. Read the summaries against the transcript before you rely on them.
Once you have the digest, the same matter checks the record cites in your brief (“Lee Dep. 42:7–19”) against the transcript, with nothing sent.
More: Zero Witness for legal work. Related guides: How to catch a fabricated citation before you file · How to build a table of authorities without uploading your brief · How to transcribe a recording without uploading it · Can you put client information into an AI chatbot?. All guides.