Rev

Most junior lawyers know the pain. A 500-page deposition transcript lands in your inbox with vague instructions to “flag anything important.” Lunch plans are canceled. Your weekend just evaporated.

Rev, the veteran speech-to-text platform, is now solving that exact problem — not by replacing legal reasoning, but by removing the grunt work that gets in its way. Through its SmartDepo product and a suite of secure, legal-grade AI tools, Rev is positioning itself not as another AI transcription company, but as a core layer of legal infrastructure.

We spoke with Jason Chicola, Founder and CEO of Rev, about how the company is reimagining transcript workflows — and why lawyers are some of their most sophisticated users.

When Transcripts Become Intelligence

Rev’s platform is built to do more than transcribe. It turns audio and video into structured, searchable transcripts — complete with speaker separation, time stamps, citations, and metadata. From there, its AI helps legal teams extract key admissions, map themes, and identify inconsistencies without ever cracking open a highlighter.

But how did Rev decide that this was the pain point worth solving?

“Lawyers and investigators started using our platform on their own,” Chicola told The Legal Wire. “They were transcribing jail calls, body cam footage, depositions — and getting buried. We realized the bottleneck wasn’t just access to evidence. It was triage. How do you find what matters when the volume is overwhelming?”

That shift — from producing transcripts to analyzing them — is where Rev saw its next opportunity. The goal? Accelerate discovery without compromising on the quality or chain of evidence.

SmartDepo: The First AI Tool Litigators Actually Like?

In 2023, Rev acquired SmartDepo, a deposition summarization platform developed by civil rights attorney Isaac Manoff. It was an early signal that Rev wasn’t chasing novelty — it was going deep.

SmartDepo now powers Rev’s page-line summaries, key admissions analysis, and thematic memos. The platform even creates a hyperlinked table of contents for each deposition, turning sprawling testimony into something attorneys can actually use.

“SmartDepo resonated with us because it was built by lawyers, not marketers,” Chicola said. “Its outputs are structured for trial prep — 100% accurate citations, human-reviewed summaries, and memos that make sense in a litigation strategy context. It fit perfectly with our mission.”

It’s not just about summaries. It’s about helping attorneys build cases faster — with structure, clarity, and confidence.

Accuracy Over Hype

AI transcription isn’t new. But Chicola is quick to point out how unreliable many providers still are.

“In legal, there’s no room for 10% error,” he said. “Rev offers the most accurate transcription for multi-speaker, noisy, real-world environments. We never train third-party models on client data. And we’re CJIS, HIPAA, and SOC 2 compliant — because this isn’t academic. It’s about justice.”

That accuracy is critical in depositions, where a single missed word can change the meaning of testimony. It’s also why SmartDepo includes a “human-in-the-loop” review layer — every output is checked by experts before delivery.

Time Back, Without Cutting Corners

Rev claims that its clients — including boutique firms, solo counsel, and even public defenders — have reduced review time by up to 94%. That’s not just a productivity gain. It’s a shift in how small teams can compete.

“One public defender told us they used Rev to review 18 hours of audio in a single afternoon,” Chicola recalled. “They spotted contradictions across multiple depositions that would’ve taken a week manually. That’s not just efficient. That’s game-changing for under-resourced teams.”

From instant exportable quotes to automated deposition prep, Rev doesn’t claim to do the legal thinking — it clears the path so you can.

What’s Next? Legal AI With a Conscience

While many AI companies are sprinting to launch “chat for legal,” Rev is doubling down on something different: verifiable facts.

“Law is about interpretation, not just output,” Chicola said. “We want to give attorneys better evidence faster — not hallucinated summaries. That’s why our platform is built around traceability. Every insight we surface is grounded in the original record.”

The roadmap ahead includes deeper case synthesis, cross-deposition insights, and tools that support investigative workflows. Not because it’s flashy, but because it’s useful

Final Verdict: AI That Respects the Lawyer’s Mind

Rev’s approach isn’t about disruption. It’s about relief — from the spreadsheet hell of tracking citations, from the hours lost to low-value work, and from the constant fear of missing something critical in a mountain of testimony.

And that’s what makes it different. It doesn’t try to out-lawyer you. It scaffolds the parts that slow you down, so you can think faster and argue better.

If your legal team is spending too much time parsing transcripts and not enough time building cases — Rev might be the co-counsel you didn’t know you needed.