Posts by Esquire Deposition Solutions
Deposition Skills Valued in “Alternate Path” Law License Initiatives
For aspiring lawyers, the bar exam has long stood as the gatekeeper — a two-day ordeal that measures memorization and time-pressured writing but largely ignores the real-world skills involved in representing clients. For successful bar examinees, those skills come later. That state of affairs is changing. In October 2025, the Utah Supreme Court approved Supreme…
Read MoreManaging AI Data in Pretrial Discovery
Several weeks ago, this blog reported on Judge Jed Rakoff’s widely discussed “AI is not your lawyer” pronouncement in United States v. Heppner. The court’s conclusion that attorney-client privilege was waived with respect to information that a client divulged to a consumer-grade generative artificial intelligence tool – when coupled with other recent court rulings explaining…
Read MoreCalifornia Ethics Panel Turns Up the Heat on Artificial Intelligence
California bar regulators are escalating efforts to address the worst ethical side-effects of artificial intelligence tools in legal services delivery. Under proposed changes to that state’s code of professional conduct, broad ethical demands that lawyers demonstrate competence, candor, and confidentiality will be joined by seven explicit admonitions regarding one particular technology: artificial intelligence. The State…
Read MoreWhat It Means to Be Technology Competent in 2026
When the ethical duty of technology competence officially arrived in 2012, courtesy of new Comment 8 to Rule 1.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the expectations were relatively modest. Much has changed since then. Technology is now deeply embedded in the legal profession, bringing both new risks and new opportunities that demand…
Read MoreWhat Role Will AI Play in Settlement Rates?
Last week’s blog examined whether pretrial discovery methods — and depositions in particular — have been responsible for the dramatic decline in civil trials. While the available evidence suggests that liberal discovery rules clearly contribute to pretrial resolutions, nobody has measured exactly how much. Meanwhile, two powerful forces are quietly reshaping how civil claims are…
Read MorePretrial Discovery and the Vanishing Trial
It’s not exactly news that civil trials in America are disappearing. The numbers are dramatic: When the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect in 1938, roughly 20% of federal civil cases reached trial. By 1962, the trial rate had dropped to about 12%. In 2016, according to the article “Going, Going, But Not Quite…
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