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Digest a deposition transcript into what matters

Today

A long transcript lands in your inbox the same week the motion is due, and somebody has to read every page to find the four answers that actually move the argument.

With Claude

You upload the PDF and get an issue by issue digest with page and line references, verbatim quotes, the admissions, the contradictions, and the questions nobody followed up on. You still read the pages that matter, and now you know which pages those are.

The prompt

Paste this into claude.ai and replace anything in brackets.

I am uploading a deposition transcript. You are helping a litigator prepare for [describe the task, e.g. a summary judgment motion] in a [case type] matter.

Build an issue by issue digest. For every point you make, give the page and line reference from the transcript and quote the testimony verbatim in quotation marks. If the transcript does not address something I asked about, write "not addressed in this transcript" rather than inferring anything.

Cover these, in order:
1. Testimony helpful to us, with a one line note on why it helps
2. Testimony that hurts us, stated bluntly
3. Places where the witness contradicts themselves, with both citations side by side
4. Every point where the witness said they did not know, did not recall, or was not sure
5. Documents the witness identified or was shown, with citations
6. Questions the examiner left unfinished or did not follow up on

The issues I care about most:
[list 3 to 5 issues]

Do not narrate the whole transcript, do not offer legal conclusions, and do not cite any case law.

What to skip in law firms

Client confidential material in a personal consumer login. Privilege and Rule 1.6 do not bend because a tool is convenient. Anthropic's consumer plans (Free, Pro, Max) use your chats to improve their models only when the model improvement setting is turned on in Privacy Settings, and commercial plans such as Team, Enterprise, and Claude for Work exclude inputs from training by default. ABA Formal Opinion 512 puts the work on you: read the terms yourself, judge the risk of disclosure, and get informed client consent where it is required, and it says boilerplate engagement letter language does not count as informed consent. Settle the account, the setting, and the consent question before a real matter goes in, and practice on redacted or hypothetical facts until you have.
Legal authority and deadline math. A language model can produce case names, docket numbers, quotes, and holdings that read perfectly and do not exist. In Mata v. Avianca the Southern District of New York sanctioned the lawyers under Rule 11 after a brief cited cases that were never real. Treat every authority Claude gives you as unverified until you have pulled it in your own research service and read it. Same rule for dates: never let Claude calculate a statute of limitations, a response date, or a filing deadline. Have it quote the dates in your material, then calendar the deadline yourself.
Anything that leaves the firm without an attorney reading it. Claude does not practice law and does not give legal advice, and none of this changes who signs the document. No pleading, motion, demand, opinion, or client letter should go out because Claude drafted it and it looked fine. Do not put Claude in front of clients or the public to answer legal questions, and remember your state's advertising rules cover whatever you say about AI on your own website.

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Every prompt on this page plus the rest, so you still have them on Monday. One email, then four short ones on making it stick. Unsubscribe any time.

Or answer four questions and Claude writes three workflows for your specific business rather than the industry generally.

Before you try it

More for law firms

Full guide for law firms