The American Lawyer has published a feature exploring how some of the country's leading law firms are using DepoSim, AltaClaro's AI-powered deposition simulator built in partnership with Verbit, to train their litigators in a moment of profound change for the profession.
The piece focuses on four firms putting DepoSim to work across their litigation practices: Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, and Littler Mendelson. Through interviews with partners, professional development leaders, and innovation executives, the article captures something we have believed from the start: that the future of legal training depends on giving lawyers a place to practice, fail, and grow before the stakes are real.
At Orrick, litigation partner Matthew LaBrie, who leads the firm's litigation training council, describes a result that surprised even him.
"Using AI has actually caused greater interaction and greater peer-to-peer engagement," LaBrie told The American Lawyer. "I would have thought that would be the exact opposite. But the way we've implemented it has actually resulted in a more engaging training process."
Kelly Cullen, who heads up associate development and training at Orrick, situates DepoSim within the firm's broader investment in onboarding and early-career development, including its residency model that gives first-year associates protected time to learn before taking on revenue-generating work.
At Taft, the article features perspectives from Chasity Thompson Osborn, the firm's director of attorney learning and development; Lyndsay Capeder, chief client and innovation officer; and Lynn Rowe Larsen, firmwide co-chair of commercial litigation. Together, they describe DepoSim as a tool that meets a real need without simply adding to the noise of AI tools entering the market.
As Larsen put it, "Sometimes clients don't really want you to practice on their legal matter in a live deposition."
DepoSim gives Taft's litigators a place to do that practice, with the flexibility to use it as a foundational training tool for newer associates or as a refresher for veteran attorneys preparing to step back into a deposition setting.
At Littler, Jeanine Conley Daves, office managing shareholder of the firm's New York office, speaks to how DepoSim supplements Littler's already robust training program by giving associates "experience that they would not otherwise have." She also describes the program's value in preparing lawyers for the full range of witness personalities they will eventually face in practice, something that has historically been difficult to teach in a structured way.
At Brownstein, chief talent officer Margaux Trammell shares feedback from the attorneys themselves, including a sentiment that has stayed with our team since we first heard it: "I can speak out loud, and if I fail, it's totally OK because there are no consequences. But just the fact that I can practice out loud is amazing."
The article also offers a glimpse into what's next for DepoSim, including planned expansions across commercial litigation, employment law, intellectual property, expert witness depositions, trial practice, oral arguments, client interviews, and negotiation scenarios. As AltaClaro CEO and founder Abdi Shayesteh notes in the piece, lawyers will always need to bring their judgment and human skills to the moments that matter most. DepoSim is built to help them get there.