What if the most important question about AI in law isn't whether it can write the brief or summarize the contract, but whether it can help lawyers actually learn to practice? That's the conversation AltaClaro CEO Abdi Shayesteh and Jeanine Conley Daves, Office Managing Shareholder of Littler's New York office, dive into on a recent episode of The Geek in Review with hosts Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer.

Shayesteh traces the inspiration for AltaClaro back to his early years at King & Spalding, where proximity to a generous mentor shaped his career, and where he also saw firsthand how uneven the traditional apprenticeship model could be.

"The pathway to becoming a better practitioner is all about assignment, feedback, assignment, feedback," he explains. "But not everybody had the same access as I did."

Standing in the firm's New York office at 1185 Avenue of the Americas, he found himself wondering: wouldn't it be great if there was a flight simulator for lawyers? Pilots, athletes, and musicians all rehearse in structured environments before they perform. Lawyers, too often, learn in front of clients, courts, and opposing counsel.

That philosophy comes to life in DepoSim, AltaClaro's AI-powered deposition simulator built in collaboration with Verbit. The platform gives attorneys a realistic AI witness, AI opposing counsel, AI court reporter, and a structured feedback system, with adjustable difficulty levels and witness personalities ranging from evasive to hostile, and opposing counsel from cooperative to aggressive. Lawyers can repeatedly practice the moments that matter most — exhibit handling, follow-up questions, managing objections —  and target specific skills in 10-minute reps or full multi-hour sessions.

For Conley Daves, who helped lead Littler's participation in the design partner pilot program (one of six firms that logged more than 160 hours of testing), that kind of realism is exactly what associate development has been missing:

"One of the biggest things for them is how real it is… When you go into a deposition, you really don't know what you're going to get. There are some opposing counsel who don't object a lot, some that do object a lot. And so the fact that you can get all of these different personalities so that you really have an understanding and can get more comfort with whatever, not only opposing counsel that you get, but whatever witness that you get. And if that person is being evasive, being able to practice, how exactly do I handle that type of situation, I think is really helpful with DepoSim."

94% of pilot participants said they would use DepoSim again, and the platform is now being adopted not just by juniors and mid-levels, but by senior litigators and partners using it to warm up before real depositions and even teach techniques live in associate training sessions.

Looking ahead, Shayesteh and Conley Daves see simulation expanding well beyond depositions. The larger shift, they argue, isn't automation for its own sake. It's using AI to help lawyers build judgment before the stakes are real, producing better-prepared associates, more consistent training, more equitable development, and a clearer path to delivering value to clients.

Watch the full conversation: