How Opus 2’s AI Powers Smarter, Faster Case Analysis And Trial Preparation

There was a time when rooms full of junior associates spent days scanning boxes of documents for a needle in the haystack that would make or break a case. 

Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, law firms are lining up to adopt the new technology to save time and resources. The problem, though, is that not all AI is created equal. 

How can lawyers trust what an AI tells them? And who has control over the case, the firm or the AI?

Opus 2, an award-winning case management software that is considered the industry’s gold standard, has implemented answers to both questions. In the last year, they embedded generative AI technology into their existing platform to transform the way firms prepare for litigation. 

Now, the software can analyze thousands of pages of documents, identify the most relevant information, generate different types of summaries and analyses with built-in sourcing, profile witnesses, accelerate deposition preparation, build chronologies, assist with plotting a litigation strategy, and much more.  

The result is a vastly reduced workload so lawyers can get to the most valuable tasks faster. It frees up time to better utilize their expertise on higher-level thinking while maintaining control over what makes it into the case narrative. 

“It’s about getting to the facts faster and surfacing insights faster,” said Brett Chalmers, Opus 2’s director of product marketing. “Faster is definitely an advantage, because it empowers lawyers and legal teams to focus their energy on shifting the balance in their favor.”

Here, we’re sharing a tour of the software, guided by Mr. Chalmers and Chief Product Officer Raymond Bentinck.

Getting Started

A key difference with Opus 2 is that it integrates with the legal workflow that lawyers already have, enhancing their ability to master the facts of any case. And that begins at the Project Dashboard. 

At a quick glance, a user sees all the cases in the system that they have access to and any tasks they’ve been notified to work on. Select a case to find a list of all the documents that have been uploaded, with a preview of a selected document in the window at the right.

Documents can be easily organized in folders, and users can also add different sets of documents — depositions, audio transcripts, communication records, etc. — into Canvases, which are something like online folders that run through Opus 2’s AI Analysis. Users also can run AI Analysis on a single document if they want. Collections are another way of sorting documents in an electronic bundle or binder, without creating a duplicate to hold everything a lawyer needs to, say, prepare a witness for a deposition. This flexibility allows users to organize the case documents however they see fit.

Tabs at the top of the screen allow users to toggle between important aspects of the case, such as content related to each witness, a customizable chronology of events and so on.

Analysis that actually helps

The first real advantage lies in the software’s ability to automate time-consuming tasks. When documents are uploaded and added to a Canvas, it analyzes and summarizes them in seconds as opposed to hours or days. The AI then identifies key content such as locations, people, dates, events and other details and flags them for review.

Take events, for example. In a case with 20,000 documents, these may contain 200,000 events. And who wants to review 200,000 events where the majority are not relevant to the case, Mr. Bentinck said. With Opus 2, a lawyer scans through what is flagged in the document viewer to determine which of the potential events is relevant. They can then easily make the event an official part of the chronology. They can also share them with other team members to review further. 
 

That creates a task for the other person to comment, and now you’re collaborating.

When events or other data are extracted, a lawyer can also assign different characteristics to that detail. For instance, any event related to a specific witness or the plaintiff could be connected to that character, and each reference is linked to the relevant location in a document.

Transcripts also can be analyzed to help legal teams uncover interesting information and streamline the deposition designation process. The AI identifies inconsistencies in witness testimony where they may have contradicted themselves. It also pulls out details on their behavior, highlighting where witnesses displayed strong emotions like anxiety and fear. 

The software then offers potential lines of inquiry for areas where lawyers could follow up with more questions — particularly helpful with a two-day deposition.

The most accurate summaries

As documents are uploaded, five different types of summaries are also automatically created. Ranging from a few brief paragraphs to a comprehensive summary of several hundred words, the summaries serve different purposes to get different people up to speed.

“Summarizing the information in the case is vitally important, because I’ve taken a 93-page document and summarized it basically into three paragraphs,” Mr. Bentinck said. This is ideal for new case team members onboarding as they do not need to read all of the case documents to understand the hot documents, saving time and getting up to speed quickly.

But you don’t have to take the AI’s word for it. The key points in the summaries are linked to the point in the document from which they were extracted. You can then click on the specific page to verify the information and see it in context.

Powerful queries that won’t muddy the water

Opus 2’s updated query function feels like a standard chat experience, but it’s a tool that will be valuable throughout the case. 

For one, the model is trained to only search the relevant document — or set of documents — for answers. Unless specified otherwise, their context-aware AI will not use its inherent knowledge about the rest of the case, or background knowledge about the real –world, so as to not confuse results and bring back information that is not explicitly coming from the selected case documents.

The queries  can be fairly complex. Mr. Bentinck gave the example of the following query, using a motion brief filed in a high-profile case as a tester: “Thinking as a judge, given this document, what do you think the percentage chance the plaintiff will win in the courtroom and why?”

The software answered 20% to 30% and provided several key reasons (the plaintiff lost the case, by the way). 

Mr. Bentinck cited the query function as something else that distinguishes Opus 2 from other platforms because it does more than identify information when uploading documents. “You do the analysis once,” he said. “But then you can use it for  different purposes at different points in the case, ask questions throughout, and it’s contributing to your case through the whole life cycle.”

AI Workbench to help design case strategy

A recently added feature called AI Workbench helps teams get deeper insight into cases from one stylized screen.

It acts as a strategic hub where teams can leverage the extracted information and quickly filter through organizations, people, legal topics and events to develop their case. By surfacing critical events, AI Workbench helps the team building a case strategy to quickly identify patterns, refine their arguments , create witness profiles, build timelines and prepare for depositions and trials with confidence.

“The ability to quickly focus on the most relevant information and then easily add key facts directly into other tools in our platform helps teams more efficiently and effectively develop their strategy,” Mr. Chalmers said.

Mr. Chalmers stressed several times during the demonstration the company’s commitment to building trust and maintaining lawyer control. “Lawyers are always in control, with our AI enhancing — not replacing — their expertise,” he said.

They have a program called AI Labs where clients provide feedback throughout the development process. They also have tested their software against real lawyers who are also doing a transcript analysis, for example. 

 Mr. Bentinck emphasized the importance of using that knowledge to shape how the company develops innovative capabilities that help law firms — who are always looking for a competitive edge — win cases and deliver maximum value to clients. From reducing workloads and sense-checking strategy to uncovering new insights and seamlessly connecting information into a winning narrative, AI-enhanced Opus 2 Cases gives litigation teams every advantage. 

“It’s about giving the case team all those strategic advantages, throughout the life cycle of the case, to build the best-case stories. The team with the best-case stories wins the case or gets the best outcome for their clients,” he said.

Because of the high-stakes nature of most disputes, there is no second place. “And that’s why they invest in Opus 2.”

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