For all our talk about modernizing legal operations, we still treat some of the most essential systems in our profession as afterthoughts. Take depositions. Most in-house lawyers will tell you they are critical in litigation. Yet we accept inefficiency, latency, and eye-watering cost as part of the process.<\/p>\n
Karl Seelbach wants to change that. As a personal injury defense litigator and the co-founder of Skribe.ai, he is pushing the legal industry to rethink deposition tech not as an optional upgrade but as foundational infrastructure. What he is building may be aimed at courtroom practice, but the implications reach far beyond litigation. For in-house teams who want to improve trust, clarity, and speed across their legal stack, this conversation is your wake-up call.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview here:<\/p>\n Depositions Are The Litigation Equivalent Of Contract Records<\/strong><\/p>\n When you step back, the parallels are obvious. A deposition is a structured record of legal fact. So is a contract. Both are artifacts of human intent that must be captured cleanly, authenticated accurately, and preserved in ways that hold up under scrutiny.<\/p>\n The challenge, as Karl notes, is that traditional deposition workflows do not deliver on that promise. \u201cIt was slow. It was expensive. The equipment felt archaic,\u201d he told me. He started Skribe after spending years taking depositions across Texas, relying on costly and inconsistent processes that delayed case momentum and drained client resources.<\/p>\n This is not just a courtroom problem. The same breakdown happens when contracts sit in static Word docs with no structure, version history, or clarity. As legal leaders, we cannot afford to keep treating these systems as back office hygiene. They are records of trust. They must be treated as infrastructure.<\/p>\n The Infrastructure Test: Cost, Scale, Redundancy, And Speed<\/strong><\/p>\n Karl makes a compelling case that deposition tech should be held to the same standard we apply to other enterprise infrastructure. \u201cJudges are telling us they don\u2019t even have a good way to get a quick and easy transcript of audio. It slows down justice,\u201d he explained. In one federal court, Skribe is piloting a system that creates instant transcripts from audio recordings then uses GenAI to help draft proposed orders.<\/p>\n In other words, this is not about replacing stenographers. It is about building scalable systems that reduce human bottlenecks, improve access, and increase transparency. The shortage of court reporters is real. The bigger risk is a shortage of usable legal data.<\/p>\n We should apply the same logic to contract systems. If your agreements are not searchable, certifiable, and comparable, then you are not managing infrastructure. You are managing files.<\/p>\n Education Is The Bottleneck, Not The Tech<\/strong><\/p>\n Adoption, Karl says, has been less about resistance and more about unfamiliarity. \u201cA lot of attorneys just assume you need a court reporter. They don\u2019t realize non-stenographic depositions have been allowed under federal rules since 1993.\u201d Education, not reluctance, is the main barrier.<\/p>\n This is another area where contract tech and deposition tech mirror each other. Many in-house teams still believe contracts must be reviewed manually, line by line, by a lawyer with a red pen. Few realize you can now certify a third-party paper for fairness or flag clause risks automatically using structured data.<\/p>\n Once you show your team what is possible, priorities change. \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to cut corners,\u201d Karl said. \u201cWe\u2019re building a reliable, redundant, software-powered way to capture the record. That\u2019s what the future of legal testimony should look like.\u201d<\/p>\n From Records To Systems: A Playbook For In-House Legal Teams<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are in-house and responsible for litigation, vendor oversight, or even contract management, there are actionable lessons here.<\/p>\n First, treat deposition systems and contract workflows as parallel infrastructure layers. Both require reliable data capture, structured outputs, and measurable performance.<\/p>\n Second, push your vendors to modernize. Ask outside counsel if they use tech-enabled deposition tools. Ask contract reviewers if they can certify risk to a standard. Stop tolerating analog tools that delay outcomes.<\/p>\n Third, pilot smart systems that accelerate business decisions. Whether it is instant transcript capture or real-time contract scoring, the ROI is not just in speed. it is in trust, visibility, and alignment.<\/p>\n As Karl put it, \u201cWe need to speed up the wheels of justice. That starts by making the data usable.\u201d<\/p>\n Legal teams have spent too long optimizing the wrong things. We fix formatting. We polish memos. But we ignore the core infrastructure that governs how legal knowledge is captured, stored, and acted on. It is time to change that.<\/p>\n Deposition tech is not support work. It is infrastructure. So are contracts. Treat them like it.<\/p>\n Olga V. Mack<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is the CEO of\u00a0TermScout<\/a>, an AI-powered contract certification platform that accelerates revenue and eliminates friction by certifying contracts as fair, balanced, and market-ready. A serial CEO and legal tech executive, she previously led a company through a successful acquisition by LexisNexis. Olga is also a\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Fellow at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and the Generative AI Editor at law.MIT. She is a visionary executive reshaping how we law\u2014how legal systems are built, experienced, and trusted. Olga\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>teaches at Berkeley Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, lectures widely, and advises companies of all sizes, as well as boards and institutions. An award-winning general counsel turned builder, she also leads early-stage ventures including\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Virtual Gabby (Better Parenting Plan)<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Product Law Hub<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>ESI Flow<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Notes to My (Legal) Self<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, each rethinking the practice and business of law through technology, data, and human-centered design. She has authored\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Rise of Product Lawyers<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Legal Operations in the Age of AI and Data<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Blockchain Value<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Get on Board<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, with\u00a0Visual IQ for Lawyers\u00a0(ABA) forthcoming. Olga is a 6x TEDx speaker and has been recognized as a Silicon Valley Woman of Influence and an ABA Woman in Legal Tech. Her work reimagines people\u2019s relationship with law\u2014making it more accessible, inclusive, data-driven, and aligned with how the world actually works. She is also the host of the Notes to My (Legal) Self podcast (streaming on\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Spotify<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Apple Podcasts<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>YouTube<\/em><\/strong><\/a>), and her insights regularly appear in Forbes, Bloomberg Law, Newsweek, VentureBeat, ACC Docket, and Above the Law. She earned her B.A. and J.D. from UC Berkeley. Follow her on\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>LinkedIn<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and X @olgavmack.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Stop Calling It Legal Support: Karl Seelbach Says Deposition Tech Is Mission-Critical Infrastructure<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n For all our talk about modernizing legal operations, we still treat some of the most essential systems in our profession as afterthoughts. Take depositions. Most in-house lawyers will tell you they are critical in litigation. Yet we accept inefficiency, latency, and eye-watering cost as part of the process.<\/p>\n Karl Seelbach wants to change that. As a personal injury defense litigator and the co-founder of Skribe.ai, he is pushing the legal industry to rethink deposition tech not as an optional upgrade but as foundational infrastructure. What he is building may be aimed at courtroom practice, but the implications reach far beyond litigation. For in-house teams who want to improve trust, clarity, and speed across their legal stack, this conversation is your wake-up call.<\/p>\n Watch the full interview here:<\/p>\n Depositions Are The Litigation Equivalent Of Contract Records<\/strong><\/p>\n When you step back, the parallels are obvious. A deposition is a structured record of legal fact. So is a contract. Both are artifacts of human intent that must be captured cleanly, authenticated accurately, and preserved in ways that hold up under scrutiny.<\/p>\n The challenge, as Karl notes, is that traditional deposition workflows do not deliver on that promise. \u201cIt was slow. It was expensive. The equipment felt archaic,\u201d he told me. He started Skribe after spending years taking depositions across Texas, relying on costly and inconsistent processes that delayed case momentum and drained client resources.<\/p>\n This is not just a courtroom problem. The same breakdown happens when contracts sit in static Word docs with no structure, version history, or clarity. As legal leaders, we cannot afford to keep treating these systems as back office hygiene. They are records of trust. They must be treated as infrastructure.<\/p>\n The Infrastructure Test: Cost, Scale, Redundancy, And Speed<\/strong><\/p>\n Karl makes a compelling case that deposition tech should be held to the same standard we apply to other enterprise infrastructure. \u201cJudges are telling us they don\u2019t even have a good way to get a quick and easy transcript of audio. It slows down justice,\u201d he explained. In one federal court, Skribe is piloting a system that creates instant transcripts from audio recordings then uses GenAI to help draft proposed orders.<\/p>\n In other words, this is not about replacing stenographers. It is about building scalable systems that reduce human bottlenecks, improve access, and increase transparency. The shortage of court reporters is real. The bigger risk is a shortage of usable legal data.<\/p>\n We should apply the same logic to contract systems. If your agreements are not searchable, certifiable, and comparable, then you are not managing infrastructure. You are managing files.<\/p>\n Education Is The Bottleneck, Not The Tech<\/strong><\/p>\n Adoption, Karl says, has been less about resistance and more about unfamiliarity. \u201cA lot of attorneys just assume you need a court reporter. They don\u2019t realize non-stenographic depositions have been allowed under federal rules since 1993.\u201d Education, not reluctance, is the main barrier.<\/p>\n This is another area where contract tech and deposition tech mirror each other. Many in-house teams still believe contracts must be reviewed manually, line by line, by a lawyer with a red pen. Few realize you can now certify a third-party paper for fairness or flag clause risks automatically using structured data.<\/p>\n Once you show your team what is possible, priorities change. \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to cut corners,\u201d Karl said. \u201cWe\u2019re building a reliable, redundant, software-powered way to capture the record. That\u2019s what the future of legal testimony should look like.\u201d<\/p>\n From Records To Systems: A Playbook For In-House Legal Teams<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are in-house and responsible for litigation, vendor oversight, or even contract management, there are actionable lessons here.<\/p>\n First, treat deposition systems and contract workflows as parallel infrastructure layers. Both require reliable data capture, structured outputs, and measurable performance.<\/p>\n Second, push your vendors to modernize. Ask outside counsel if they use tech-enabled deposition tools. Ask contract reviewers if they can certify risk to a standard. Stop tolerating analog tools that delay outcomes.<\/p>\n Third, pilot smart systems that accelerate business decisions. Whether it is instant transcript capture or real-time contract scoring, the ROI is not just in speed. it is in trust, visibility, and alignment.<\/p>\n As Karl put it, \u201cWe need to speed up the wheels of justice. That starts by making the data usable.\u201d<\/p>\n Legal teams have spent too long optimizing the wrong things. We fix formatting. We polish memos. But we ignore the core infrastructure that governs how legal knowledge is captured, stored, and acted on. It is time to change that.<\/p>\n Deposition tech is not support work. It is infrastructure. So are contracts. Treat them like it.<\/p>\n Olga V. Mack<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is the CEO of\u00a0TermScout<\/a>, an AI-powered contract certification platform that accelerates revenue and eliminates friction by certifying contracts as fair, balanced, and market-ready. A serial CEO and legal tech executive, she previously led a company through a successful acquisition by LexisNexis. Olga is also a\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Fellow at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and the Generative AI Editor at law.MIT. She is a visionary executive reshaping how we law\u2014how legal systems are built, experienced, and trusted. Olga\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>teaches at Berkeley Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, lectures widely, and advises companies of all sizes, as well as boards and institutions. An award-winning general counsel turned builder, she also leads early-stage ventures including\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Virtual Gabby (Better Parenting Plan)<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Product Law Hub<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>ESI Flow<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Notes to My (Legal) Self<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, each rethinking the practice and business of law through technology, data, and human-centered design. She has authored\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Rise of Product Lawyers<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Legal Operations in the Age of AI and Data<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Blockchain Value<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Get on Board<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, with\u00a0Visual IQ for Lawyers\u00a0(ABA) forthcoming. Olga is a 6x TEDx speaker and has been recognized as a Silicon Valley Woman of Influence and an ABA Woman in Legal Tech. Her work reimagines people\u2019s relationship with law\u2014making it more accessible, inclusive, data-driven, and aligned with how the world actually works. She is also the host of the Notes to My (Legal) Self podcast (streaming on\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Spotify<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Apple Podcasts<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>YouTube<\/em><\/strong><\/a>), and her insights regularly appear in Forbes, Bloomberg Law, Newsweek, VentureBeat, ACC Docket, and Above the Law. She earned her B.A. and J.D. from UC Berkeley. Follow her on\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>LinkedIn<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and X @olgavmack.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Stop Calling It Legal Support: Karl Seelbach Says Deposition Tech Is Mission-Critical Infrastructure<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For all our talk about modernizing legal operations, we still treat some of the most essential systems in our profession as afterthoughts. Take depositions. Most in-house lawyers will tell you they are critical in litigation. Yet we accept inefficiency, latency, and eye-watering cost as part of the process. Karl Seelbach wants to change that. 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