This article provides a deep dive on AI descriptions in Storybuilder, Writing Assistant evidence analysis, and Writing Assistant deposition analyzer, which are features available as part of Everlaw AI Assistant.
- If you're looking for a starter guide for all Everlaw AI Assistant features, see this article.
- If you're looking for a general overview of Everlaw AI assistant and information about our privacy and security standards, please see our AI Assistant FAQ.
- If you have feedback or questions, feel free to email us at feedback@everlaw.com. We love hearing from our users.
Table of content
AI descriptions
Storybuilder items on the Timeline have a description field that users can input text into. If:
- This description field is not already populated with a human-written description, and
- An AI summary/description is available for the document
then, Everlaw will display the AI description in this field. This is the same description that is generated from the Everlaw AI summary task, which you can learn more about here.
AI descriptions will be displayed in italicized font and have a sparkle icon indicator. You can freely edit the description field. Keep in mind that if you "edit" an AI description from the Timeline, you are not changing the underlying AI description itself. Instead, this action is equivalent to:
- Making a copy of the AI description
- Applying your edits to it
- Adding the finalized version into the field as human-generated text
Writing Assistant: Evidence Analysis
Writing Assistant is a flexible tool that can help you synthesize, structure, and brainstorm against the evidence curated in Storybuilder.
| Can be analyzed with Writing Assistant | Cannot be analyzed with Writing Assistant |
| Documents with AI summaries added to the Story | Documents in the Story without AI summaries |
| Testimony snippets added to the timeline | Document highlights added to the Story |
AI credits are not required to generate new Writing Assistant tasks, but are required to insert a completed task in a Draft or Depo for the first time. This means you will only consume credits on these tasks if you find the output sufficiently valuable to use as a first draft or incorporate into a working document.
Accessing the Writing Assistant
You can access the Writing Assistant by clicking the Assistant button in the toolbar of any Draft or Deposition. This will open a side panel where you can create new Writing Assistant tasks and view past tasks.
Everlaw preserves and displays a history of all Writing Assistant tasks for each Draft or Deposition, including (1) the prompt and configuration settings used to create the task and (2) the full result from that task.
Creating new tasks
You can create new tasks by clicking the Compose button in the side panel. This will open a flow with two steps.
Step 1: Evidence selection
Select which documents you want to use as part of the task. Everlaw supports up to 500 eligible pieces of evidence per task. There are three options:
- All documents in the Story
- All documents currently added to the draft or depo
- All documents labeled with a given label in the Story
Under each option, Everlaw displays the count of eligible evidence out of the total. To increase the number of eligible evidence, generate AI summaries for documents in the Story that lack them. To learn more about summaries, see this article.
Note 1: The full text of the documents included in a task might not be used in the task. For example, if hundreds of documents are included in the task, each document will be represented by short descriptions of their content rather than their full text. Alternatively, if the task includes a handful of shorter length documents, longer summaries or full document text will be used to represent the content of the documents.
Note 2: The resulting output will not include references to all documents included in your selection, unless that set is very small (< 10 documents). The primary use case for making an expansive selection at this step is to allow Everlaw AI to pick-and-choose the documents it believes are most relevant to your request. If you already know you want to analyze a particular set of documents, we encourage you to make a narrower selection at this step.
Step 2: Task configuration
In this step, you will configure options that determine both the form and substance of the task. Everlaw will also tell you how many credits will be consumed upon first insertion of the output.
The table below summarizes the available options for configuring a Writing Assistant task.
| Form | Description | Configuration options |
| Memo | The resulting generation will be a longform piece of writing with in-line citations. The memo comprises multiple sections, each of which has multiple paragraphs. |
Tone: The tone of the memo or outline, which can be either analytical/dispassionate (“analyzes”) or persuasive (“argues”). Substance: You must also describe what you want the memo/outline to analyze or argue, along with any additional details or instructions. |
| Outline | The resulting generation will be an outline, with concise descriptions of what should be covered in each of the sections and subsections, and citations to relevant pieces of evidence. | |
| List | The resulting generation will be a bullet-point list (with potential sub-bullets, depending on the configuration) with relevant citations for each item in the list. |
Each item is: You must describe what each item on the list should be or represent (for example, a person, a question, an event, an example of something, etc.) Item details: You can optionally specify what additional details or analysis you want included for each item. These will be added as sub-bullets.
Sort order: You can optionally specify if you want the items ordered in chronological or reverse chronological order. |
| Table | The resulting generation will be a table with rows and columns that are based on your configuration. |
Each row is: You must describe what each row in the table should be or represent (for example, an event, a fact, an entity, or an example of something, etc.)
Specify columns: Optionally, you can specify the exact columns you want included in the table. For example, if each row is a fact about recommended sales and marketing strategy, you may want columns for "strategy", "date", and "individuals involved".
Note: If you do not specify your own columns, Everlaw AI will choose appropriate columns to generate. If you do specify your own columns, Everlaw AI will generate only the specified columns. |
You can also choose to use templates for your task configuration.
To view and use existing templates, click the Select template dropdown menu to expand the list of available templates.
When you select a template from this list, the dialog’s task fields are populated with the corresponding configuration.
There are two main types of templates: custom templates and pre-defined Everlaw templates.
The four pre-defined Everlaw templates are:
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Factual Background: A Memo template that analyzes the factual events and context of the selected evidence
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Misconduct Analysis: An Outline template that analyzes any misconduct evidence by the selected sources.
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Theme List: A List template that indexes and describes distinct themes present in the selected evidence
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Cast of Characters: A Table template that summarizes key entities found in your chosen sources
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You can reference these pre-defined Everlaw templates to gain a better understanding of the various ways task types can be configured. You can also use these templates as-is or as the base for creating your own custom templates.
You can create custom templates in a few different ways.
If you would like to create a custom template from scratch, you can compose a new task, enter any desired configuration inputs, then click the save button to the right of the dropdown. This will open a dialog where you will be able to either save your configuration as a new template or save to an existing template.
If you have an existing template that you would like to overwrite with this new configuration, select Save to existing template and choose the template you would like to overwrite.
Note: You can only overwrite templates that you have been given full access to.
Once you hit Save, you will be brought back to the original Writing Assistant dialog, and you should see the custom template you just created as a new addition to your list of templates.
If you want to create a custom template by building off of an existing template, you can first select it from the Select template dropdown menu on the Configure task page. This will populate the dialog’s task fields with the corresponding configuration, and you will be able to update the fields with your desired configuration. Once changes are made to the existing template, you can click the save button.
When you have finished defining and saving your desired configuration as a template, you can select Generate to begin the task using that template.
Lastly, you can also create a custom template after generating an output by copying it to a new task and saving the configuration.
Project admins can pin templates to make them visible and usable by all users in the project who have access to the Writing Assistant. Project admins will automatically have full access to all custom templates created by users, so they will be able to pin any existing template in the project.
To pin a template, you can click the gear button on the Configure task page of the Writing Assistant dialog. This will open the Manage templates dialog, where you will be able to use the pin
button next to the template you would like to pin.
Pinned templates will appear in the dialog’s Pinned templates section. To unpin a template, you can just click again on the pin button next to the template you would like to unpin.
Rewriting, or writing against, existing content
If you've highlighted content in the draft body, the Rewrite option will become available in the Writing Assistant. Clicking Rewrite will open a configuration page where you can provide instructions on how to rewrite, or write against, the highlighted text. You can also select additional pieces of evidence you want included as part of the task (evidence found in the highlighted text will be included automatically).
This is a flexible option that can be used in a variety of ways. For example:
- You can highlight a paragraph and ask for Writing Assistant to come up with 6 different variations that differ in terms of style and formality
- You can highlight a section of an outline and ask Writing Assistant to flesh it out into a full draft, while taking into account additional pieces of evidence
- You can upload an opposing party’s brief into the draft body, highlight some paragraphs where a particular argument is developed, and ask the Writing Assistant to come up with some counter arguments taking into account Story evidence
- You can highlight text that represents a specific production request item and ask the Writing Assistant to list documents in the story that are relevant to that request
In-progress generations and viewing output
Once you click Generate or Rewrite, the task will be sent to the generation queue and you'll be brought to the output page for the task. The top half of the output page shows all the configuration details for the task and the bottom half displays the resulting generation. In-progress generations will be streamed word-by-word into this area.
Because Writing Assistant tasks are completed in the background, leaving this view or closing the draft/Everlaw will not affect the progress of the task. From this view, you can:
- Start a new task using the same task configurations.
- Insert the completed output into the draft at the current cursor position or at the end of the draft body.
- Note: The first insertion will consume credits, the number of which will be displayed in the insertion button. After the first insertion, the generation is considered unlocked, and you can freely insert or copy the generation as much as desired without consuming addition credits.
- Copy the contents of the output to your clipboard.
- Note: The copy action is hidden until the generation is unlocked
- Expand the output container to see more of the generation.
- Delete the task.
Task history
Each task generated within a draft or depo is represented as an entry on the task table. Each entry has identifying information, including (1) the user instructions, (2) the datetime of generation, (3) the user who created the task, and (4) the current status of the task (completed, generating, failure). Clicking a task entry will open the full output and configuration view for that task, described above.
You can sort the task history by date and filter by user.
Using formatted output in the Draft body
Everlaw AI outputs correctly formatted text. This means you can easily extend lists and tables once inserted into the Draft body, or use the Navigation option to view an outline of a Memo based on the section headers.
Writing Assistant: Deposition analyzer
You can also use the Writing Assistant to summarize and analyze deposition transcripts. The options for transcript analysis are split between (1) a set of pre-built tasks that generate high-level summaries and analysis, and (2) a custom task option for custom questions or deeper analysis. The deposition analyzer does not cost any credits to use, but your organization must have credits available or an active Everlaw AI free trial.
To get started on generating an AI transcript analysis:
- Upload a transcript to a Deposition.
- Click the Writing Assistant icon in the toolbar and navigate to the Transcript analysis tab.
- You need to preparing transcript for analysis if this is the first time a transcript is being analyzed. This process can take a few minutes for larger transcripts. Once the preparation step is complete, the button will be replaced with the Analyze button.
- Select the Analyze button to start a transcript analysis task. You can choose from the following tasks:
- Deponent background and topic-based summary: A high-level summary of the deponent’s background and their testimony by topic
- Exhibit and witness summary: A high-level summary by exhibits and individuals mentioned in the testimony
- Inconsistency and discrepancy analysis: A high-level analysis of any inconsistencies or discrepancies in the testimony
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Custom task based on your own instructions
- Select Generate. The output includes page-line citations based on the testimony citation format configured in transcript settings.
- Once the generation is complete, you can Insert the output into the Deposition or the Summary body, or reference the generation in the Writing Assistant panel.
Deposition analyzer output includes page-line citations to the underlying transcript, which aids verification of the output.
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