From Document Production to Deposition Outline: The Litigator's AI Prep Kit

Deposition prep usually starts the same way: thousands of produced pages, a case theory in your head, and a witness who sits down in ten days. The first pass through the documents, sorting what happened when and which documents this witness touched, is the slowest part, and it's the part AI handles best.

This kit chains four free skills from Anthropic's open-source Claude for Legal litigation plugin, plus one general-purpose check, into one prep pass. You end with a sourced chronology, an element chart that shows where your proof is thin, and a focused outline for the witness.

What you need: Claude with the litigation plugin from Claude for Legal installed (it runs in Claude Cowork or Claude Code), and the production as an export or folder of files. If your eDiscovery platform (Everlaw, Relativity, DISCO, or Aurora) has a connector set up, the skills can pull from it directly. Otherwise, they work from the files you give them.

Important: these skills help you organize and draft. They don't replace your judgment, and nothing here is legal advice. Every cite and quote in the output is a lead to verify against the record, not a finished work product. Follow your firm's rules on which tools may handle client documents.

The steps, times, and directory pages are in the kit card above.

Before you start: set up once (20 minutes)

1. Install the litigation plugin from the Claude for Legal repository. It's Apache 2.0 licensed, so you can read every skill file before you use it.
2. Run the plugin's setup interview. It asks for your practice context and saves a configuration file the other skills read, including your case theory for each matter. A clear theory (your pivot fact, the key facts for and against) is what makes the later steps useful instead of generic.

Step 1: Intake the matter (15 minutes)

Matter Intake asks one consistent set of questions: who the parties are, conflicts, risk, whether a legal hold is in place, owners, and key dates. It writes a matter file and adds the matter to a log.

This step isn't optional. The chronology (in matter mode) and deposition skills check that log first and refuse to run on a matter that hasn't been taken in, so the conflicts check always happens before the substantive work.

Ask:

New matter: intake [matter name]. We represent [party]. Here's the complaint and the scheduling order.

Step 2: Build the chronology (60 minutes)

Facts happen in order, and the chronology is the spine the outline hangs on. Chronology Builder reads the production, pulls out dated events, removes duplicates, and tags each one by how much it matters to your theory. Every entry carries its source, a Bates number or file path, and anything that didn't come from a document is tagged for you to verify.

Ask:

Build a working chronology for [matter] from the production in this folder. Tag each event by significance to our theory and flag the documents [witness name] authored, received, or is mentioned in.

Before running it, the skill asks how to treat privilege. If the production hasn't been screened, let it flag possible privilege issues, and get sign-off before you share the chronology outside the team.

Your job in this step: read the entries tagged high significance against the underlying documents. If the skill reports that coverage is thin for a period or custodian, believe it. It's built to stop and say so rather than fill the gap.

Step 3: Chart the proof (45 minutes)

Claim Chart builds an element chart for any claim or defense, or a patent claim chart for infringement or invalidity. Every cell is pin-cited, and the most valuable part is the list of elements where your evidence is thin.

Ask:

Build a civil element chart for [claim] from our side, using the chronology and the production. Give me the gap list first.

That gap list tells you what this witness needs to give you. The elements you can't prove from the documents become the testimony you want to lock in.

Step 4: Build the outline (45 minutes)

Deposition Prep turns your theory, the witness's documents, and the gaps from Step 3 into an outline. It runs from background, to locking in the good facts, to confronting the witness with the bad ones, to boxing the witness in on your theory. It's deliberately short: three or four topics that matter, because a 200-question outline gets skimmed in the room.

Ask:

Depo prep for [witness name] in [matter]. Focus on the gaps from the element chart, and pull any prior statements we can use for impeachment.

The skill paraphrases prior statements rather than inventing quotes, and marks anything it couldn't confirm as needing an exact quote from the transcript. Rule and case cites are tagged with where they came from, and any that came from web search or the model's memory are marked to verify.

Your job in this step: pull every document the outline relies on and check each pin cite supports the whole point it's attached to.

Step 5: Check your thinking (15 minutes)

Before you treat the outline as final, add Discernment Nudge, a general-purpose skill from Anthropic. Once it's installed, Claude ends a substantive draft with two or three pointed questions tied to what it just produced, so you check the key facts, test the reasoning, and notice what's missing. It does this at most once per conversation.

Then push further yourself:

Review this outline as opposing counsel would. What's the weakest topic, and which document would the witness most likely explain away?

Want the formatting as files you can reuse? The Legal & Litigation Workflow Pack includes a deposition digest, a chronology table, an exhibit list, and an outline skeleton for Claude, ChatGPT, and as a plain prompt. It formats the work. It does not decide the law, and it does not include these free skills.

Common pitfalls

• Skipping the case theory. Without it, the chronology tags everything as important and the outline loses focus.
• Trusting cites you haven't pulled. Every cell and quote is a lead. Verify against the record before you rely on it.
• Sharing the chronology too early. Extracting from privileged documents can risk waiver. Clear distribution with counsel first.
• Running it on a rolling production as if it were complete. The chronology only knows what has landed. Re-run it when the next volume arrives.

Your prep checklist

• Install the litigation plugin and run the setup interview with your case theory
• Intake the matter
• Build the chronology and verify the high-significance entries
• Chart the claim or defense and note the gap list
• Build the outline around the gaps and check every pin cite
• Pressure-test the outline before the deposition

Find these skills and more free legal tools in the YourAIKit directory.

YourAIKit products are workflow tools. They are not legal, tax, or financial advice.