Colibri Legal vs Skribe: how they compare in 2026

C
Colibri Legal profile
S
Skribe profile
Last verifiedSeptember 25, 2026
Verdict

Colibri Legal and Skribe both record depositions without a stenographer and use speech recognition to produce a transcript the same day, with human finals on top. Neither makes a published commitment that recordings stay confidential. Skribe's terms disclaim any guarantee of confidentiality for uploaded material, grant it a perpetual license to use that material, including to improve and sell the service, and keep a backup recording running through recesses and breaks that can be released on a subpoena. Skribe is stronger on what it tells a buyer up front. It publishes prices of $99 per hour for Library and $379 per record hour for a hosted deposition, a table of the states whose rules allow non stenographic depositions with the governing rule cited, and named firm testimonials. Colibri's counterweight is its engine and its processor disclosure. It runs its own speech recognition as a Zoom app and names OpenAI among its processors.

Which one fits

Choose Colibri Legal if

  • You want a real time transcript of a remote proceeding, including one the other side is running. Colibri Legal records any remote proceeding with a click and shows a live transcript from its own speech recognition inside Zoom or its web app, with highlights, notes and pre loaded deposition questions checked off as they are asked.
  • You need to know which outside companies handle the recordings. Colibri's privacy policy lists its processors, including OpenAI, with the country each one processes in, mostly the United States with some in Estonia and Spain. Skribe names only Google and Stripe, and no speech recognition or AI provider.
  • You only want to pay for a certified transcript when a case needs one. Colibri sells a monthly subscription for real time transcripts and rough drafts, with certified final transcripts charged by the page and delivered within 24 hours, and a certified deposition reporter bookable through a partner firm. Legal prices are quoted.

Choose Skribe if

  • You need to know whether a non stenographic deposition will hold up where you practice. Skribe publishes a table of forty two states, the District of Columbia and the federal rules, marking each as allowed or allowed with stipulations, citing the governing rule, and offering a sample notice for each.
  • You want to price a deposition before calling anyone. Skribe publishes Library at $99 per hour of audio or video and hosted depositions at $379 per record hour, including the digital reporter, same day rough transcript, human verified final and AI tools, with $100 an hour extra in person and free cancellation on 24 hours' notice.
  • You want a sworn human final behind the AI draft. Skribe's final transcripts are proofread by a person and come with a sworn declaration of verbatim accuracy in five to seven days, a digital reporter who is a notary swears in the witness, and the audio and video recording is the official record.

At a glance

Category
Colibri LegalLitigation & eDiscovery
SkribeLitigation & eDiscovery
Founded
Colibri LegalNot published
SkribeNot published
Headquarters
Colibri LegalUnited States
SkribeAustin, TX, United States
Last verified
Colibri LegalOct 12, 2026
SkribeSep 18, 2026

All 15 axes, side by side

The same grid applied to every vendor in the index, graded from public sources. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.

AI Centrality

How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.

Colibri Legal
AA on AI CentralityThe artificial intelligence is the product. Remove the models and there is nothing left to sell.

Speech recognition is the product. Colibri Legal is bought for the real time transcript and the AI rough draft that is ready the moment a proceeding ends, and the library, highlights, notes and question list are built around that text. The legal page calls the engine proprietary AI. Certified finals are a human service on top, ordered only when a case needs one. The same platform runs Colibri's other products, where the paid plans of its note taker add AI meeting summaries, key point extraction, suggested next steps, automatic chapters and AI refined transcripts. None of those generative features is described on the legal page, so the legal product's AI is transcription and speaker identification.

Skribe
BB on AI CentralityThe models are the engine of a core capability, layered on a product that would still function without them as a document or workflow system.

The models run the working layer, on a product whose official output is checked by people. Speech recognition produces the rough transcript and powers the Library product, and generative AI finds key moments, summarizes testimony and answers questions across a deposition with links back to the video. The official record, though, is the recording itself, and a person proofreads and swears to the final transcript. The hosted tier also includes a digital reporter and recording management that work without the models. Remove the AI and a customer still has a recorded deposition transcribed by a human.

Citation Accuracy and Hallucination Disclosure

Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.

Colibri Legal
CC on Citation Accuracy and Hallucination DisclosureAccuracy is asserted without measurement, or grounding is claimed while output cites sources the reader cannot open and verify.

The legal page leads on machine transcription accuracy and gives no error rate or method behind the claim. Accuracy is managed by design instead. Every word in the library is tied to the audio and video, and a click anywhere in the transcript starts playback at that moment, so a user can hear what was said. The transcription product adds a custom vocabulary for names and terms, speaker identification and an online editor for correcting mistakes against the audio. Where accuracy matters, the customer orders a final transcript from professional legal transcriptionists. Rough drafts and finals are kept apart. Nothing says how a rough draft marks words the engine could not make out. The product transcribes testimony and cites no legal authority.

Skribe
BB on Citation Accuracy and Hallucination DisclosureGrounding is real and documented, with linked primary sources and a described retrieval method, short of published accuracy figures an outsider can test.

Answers are grounded in the record with a direct link to source, and one accuracy figure is published without a method. The AI page says every AI answer is supported by links to the exact point in the video, so any answer can be checked against the testimony. The home page states that final transcripts proofread by people are 99 percent accurate and compares that with the 95 percent threshold for stenographer certification. That figure covers the verified final transcript only, not the rough transcript or the AI summaries and answers, and no method, sample or test is described. The accuracy of the rough transcript is not stated.

Autonomy and Oversight Model

What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.

Colibri Legal
BB on Autonomy and Oversight ModelA written commitment that the models work alongside a supervising lawyer, with real review surfaces, short of the full control structure: commonly the threshold at which the system stops or what happens after it is wrong.

Machine output and the certified record are kept apart. AI rough drafts are for review during the deposition and at breaks, while final transcripts are prepared by professional legal transcriptionists, and only when the customer orders them. During the proceeding the attorney steers what is kept: highlights with a click, short notes, and a preloaded list of questions that the app marks off as each one is asked. A certified court reporter can be brought in when the record needs one. Nothing states that a rough draft may not be quoted or filed, and no review step is described before a rough draft reaches the user. The app records with a click, including proceedings run by the other side.

Skribe
BB on Autonomy and Oversight ModelA written commitment that the models work alongside a supervising lawyer, with real review surfaces, short of the full control structure: commonly the threshold at which the system stops or what happens after it is wrong.

Human verification is built into the official deliverable, and the AI analysis layer has no stated review. The vendor separates the same day rough transcript, produced by speech recognition, from the final transcript, which it says is proofread by a person every time and comes with a sworn Declaration of Verbatim Transcript. It states that the audio and video recording is the official record. A trained staff member attends hosted depositions and monitors the recording. The AI summaries, key moments and answers carry no equivalent control, and nothing states what the rough transcript should not be used for.

Operational and Outcome Evidence

Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.

Colibri Legal
CC on Operational and Outcome EvidenceCustomer logos and unattributed testimonials stand in for evidence, or results are quoted with no basis stated.

No law firm customer, deployment or measured result is published for Colibri Legal. The home page quotes Peter Hellman of DepoCall, a court reporting firm. Other quotes come from users of the general product: Mike Wittenstein of Storyminers on documenting client and team calls, Dr. Dimitrios Rovas of University College London on live captions for international students, and Radek Jezbera of Black Pine Executive Consulting on the Zoom integration. Colibri states it was a Zoom Apps launch partner. Its team, spread across eight locations, comes from Google, Nuance and academia. The chief executive, Sergei Burkov, and the chief technology officer, Max Ushakov, both worked at Google, and Burkov sold an earlier startup to Google. No figure ties the legal product to time or cost saved at a named firm.

Skribe
BB on Operational and Outcome EvidenceReal deployment evidence with substance, short of full attribution or measurement: a named customer without figures, or figures without the named customer.

Named customers are published, without figures. The home page carries attributed testimonials from Charles Peckham of Peckham Martin, Steven Sachs of Espinoza & Brock and Randy Sorrels, managing partner of Sorrels Law, alongside firm logos. The testimonials describe faster transcripts, video the same day and lower overhead, but give no measured result. The vendor's cost comparison with traditional court reporting is a pricing claim, not a customer outcome.

Privilege and Confidentiality Posture

How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.

Colibri Legal
DD on Privilege and Confidentiality PostureNothing published on how client confidences are handled by a product built to ingest them.

Nothing on the legal page, the terms or the privacy policy addresses confidentiality or privilege for recorded proceedings and transcripts. The terms of service, last updated 14 February 2020, cover the website, mobile apps and messenger bots and do not mention depositions, transcripts or client material. The privacy policy, effective 25 April 2021, treats the content of meetings and calls as personal data and lists the outside services that process it. Google ASR, for speech to text, and the OpenAI API are both described as handling any data in a user's online meetings and phone conversations. The policy reserves the use of collected information to personalize and improve the services. No confidentiality commitment, access restriction or deletion schedule specific to legal recordings is published.

Skribe
DD on Privilege and Confidentiality PostureNothing published on how client confidences are handled by a product built to ingest them.

Confidentiality for uploaded material is disclaimed in the published terms. Section 13 of the Terms & Conditions, revised 27 July 2026, states that Skribe does not guarantee any confidentiality with respect to submissions, alongside a broad perpetual license over uploaded content. The section 12 confidentiality clause does not cover testimony the service uses for its intended purposes. Section 4.c, added in July 2026, keeps a backup recording running while the meeting room is open, including recesses and breaks, and attendees are advised to mute or leave the room. Nothing addresses privilege or work product.

UPL and Professional Responsibility Posture

Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.

Colibri Legal
DD on UPL and Professional Responsibility PostureNothing published on the advice line for a product that produces legal work, including where it is sold to people who are not lawyers.

Nothing addresses lawyers' duties when relying on an AI rough draft, or the standing of a rough draft against a certified transcript. Recording consent rules go unmentioned, as does the use of a recording made of a proceeding run by the other side. The legal page markets that last use directly: a firm need not buy transcripts or recordings from the opposing party's court reporter, because Colibri can record and transcribe the proceeding itself. No advice line, competence statement or ethics reference appears in the terms or the privacy policy.

Skribe
BB on UPL and Professional Responsibility PostureA real position is published on advice versus tooling, short of full treatment: commonly a disclaimer without the supervision and competence dimension, or silence on jurisdiction limits.

A real position is published on what the service is and where it lawfully operates, and supervision is not covered. The terms state that Skribe is not a law firm and gives no guarantee that recorded testimony is admissible. The site states that Skribe digital reporters are not certified shorthand reporters and do not perform stenography, and that depositions are conducted under rules permitting recording without a stenographer, with those states listed on the admissibility page. Subscribers are defined as attorneys and law firms. Nothing addresses an attorney's duties when relying on AI summaries or answers, and the rough transcript is not set apart from the sworn final in professional responsibility terms.

AI Governance and Bias Disclosure

Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.

Colibri Legal
DD on AI Governance and Bias DisclosureNo governance position published for a system whose output affects legal outcomes.

No AI governance position, accountable owner, testing before release or evaluation result is published. Nothing addresses how transcription accuracy varies across accents, dialects, audio quality or the overlapping speech common in depositions, and Colibri's Zoom listing states the product works in English only. The privacy policy names two outside AI services, Google ASR and the OpenAI API, without saying which product uses which or how they are chosen. The about page describes the team's background in speech and language research but no review of model behavior.

Skribe
DD on AI Governance and Bias DisclosureNo governance position published for a system whose output affects legal outcomes.

No governance position is published. There is no responsible AI policy, testing regime or accountable owner, and nothing discloses how speech recognition performs across accents, speakers or audio conditions. That gap matters for a product whose transcripts become evidence. The site's main pages, the terms and the privacy policy were searched.

AI Safety and Data Stewardship

Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.

Colibri Legal
CC on AI Safety and Data StewardshipA generic privacy policy covers the product without addressing what happens to documents and prompts after processing.

The privacy policy is the main stewardship document. It lists each outside processor with the data it handles and where it processes it. Amazon Web Services hosts the service in the United States, and Google ASR and the OpenAI API handle meeting and call content. Support, messaging, payment and sales run through tools including Zendesk, Twilio, Square, Mailchimp, Typeform, Apollo and Pipedrive, some of them in Spain and Estonia. A user deletes an account by email, after which personal information is made irrecoverable. The policy still refers to the EU Privacy Shield. Nothing describes security controls, encryption, access logging, retention periods for recordings or breach notification. On the general app, audio is kept without limit on every plan, and video for two months on the free plan and two years on paid plans.

Skribe
CC on AI Safety and Data StewardshipA generic privacy policy covers the product without addressing what happens to documents and prompts after processing.

Retention and security are covered only in general terms. Personal information is kept indefinitely by default, and after cancellation Skribe has no obligation to preserve data. The only security measure named is SSL encryption, and internal access is restricted to staff with an operational need. No encryption at rest, subprocessor list for recordings or AI processing, or incident notification commitment is published.

AI Liability and Recourse

What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.

Colibri Legal
CC on AI Liability and RecourseLiability is addressed only through a standard limitation clause that disclaims the exposure the product creates.

The terms of service, last updated 14 February 2020, provide the service as is, disclaim warranties and cap Colibri's liability at the total amounts the user has paid. California law governs, and disputes go to binding arbitration. No indemnity runs to the customer, and no term addresses a transcript that proves wrong, a missed recording or a lost file. Certified final transcripts and court reporter appearances are bought on separate quotes whose terms are not published, and the terms make no mention of either.

Skribe
CC on AI Liability and RecourseLiability is addressed only through a standard limitation clause that disclaims the exposure the product creates.

Limitations in the terms disclaim the exposure the product creates. The software is provided as is with no warranty of accuracy or completeness, and Skribe's liability is capped at the amount paid and never more than $1,000. A user who pays nothing is limited to injunctive relief. Users must indemnify Skribe, including for reliance on advice provided through the software. No vendor indemnity or insurance position is published.

Practice Systems Integration Depth

How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.

Colibri Legal
BB on Practice Systems Integration DepthReal integrations exist and are documented, short of depth: named connections without a description of what they actually move.

The product works where remote proceedings happen. The Colibri App for Zoom shows live transcription with identified speakers in a side panel, installed from the Zoom App Marketplace, and Colibri was a Zoom Apps launch partner. The cloud app also records audio and video from any online meeting platform and from the telephone, and can capture a proceeding from the user's own computer. Transcripts export to Microsoft Word, PDF, VTT and other formats. The general app connects to Slack and Salesforce and lists an API among its plan features. No connection to a case management, document management or litigation support system is offered.

Skribe
DD on Practice Systems Integration DepthNo integration into practice systems located, or the product stands alone and requires work to move to it.

No integration into practice systems is published. Skribe is built on Zoom, and its Skribe Link feature records Zoom depositions a firm does not host; both are capture channels, not practice systems. No connection to document management, case management, discovery or trial presentation software is named, and clips are shared by link. The home, product and pricing pages and the terms were searched.

Deployment Model and Data Residency

Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.

Colibri Legal
BB on Deployment Model and Data ResidencyDeployment model is stated clearly with partial residency detail, or residency is offered without the processing location being addressed, or the tenancy model is stated on its own with no residency detail published.

The service runs in the cloud with nothing to install. The privacy policy names Amazon Web Services as host, with processing in the United States. The OpenAI API and most other services are also processed in the United States, with some sales and support tools in Spain and Estonia. No region choice, single tenant option or private deployment is offered, and where Google ASR processes audio is not stated.

Skribe
CC on Deployment Model and Data ResidencyCloud delivery is implied and neither the tenancy model nor the region is stated.

Location is stated, and hosting and tenancy are not. The terms say the software is operated in the United States, and the privacy policy says personal information is stored and processed on servers there. No hosting provider, tenancy model or deployment option is named, and where speech recognition and AI providers process recordings is not published.

Security Certifications and Trust Center

Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.

Colibri Legal
DD on Security Certifications and Trust CenterNo independent security attestation located.

No security certification, audit report or trust center is offered, and the legal page makes no security claim. The privacy policy describes how personal information is used and shared but names no security control or standard.

Skribe
DD on Security Certifications and Trust CenterNo independent security attestation located.

No independent security attestation is published. The home page, terms, privacy policy and FAQ were searched, no security page is linked from the navigation, and a targeted search for a Skribe SOC 2 or other attestation found nothing. The only security detail published is SSL encryption at 128 bit strength, in the privacy policy.

Model Supply Chain Disclosure

Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.

Colibri Legal
BB on Model Supply Chain DisclosureThe supply chain is partly disclosed: providers named without change notification, or architecture described without the providers.

Two outside AI services are named in the privacy policy, without saying which product uses them. The legal page calls its rough drafts the work of proprietary AI, and the about page describes a real time speech recognition platform built by a team from Google and Nuance. The privacy policy lists Google ASR as an automatic speech recognition engine and the OpenAI API, in the United States, as processors of any data in a user's meetings and calls. The general app lists a custom language model among its plan features. Which engine produces a Colibri Legal rough draft, and whether customers hear of a change, is not stated.

Skribe
DD on Model Supply Chain DisclosureNothing published about the model supply chain a customer inherits.

The models underneath are not identified. The vendor refers to its automated speech recognition system and generative AI tools but names no speech recognition provider, language model or model provider. The search covered the home page, AI page, product pages, terms and privacy policy.

Commercial Transparency

Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.

Colibri Legal
CC on Commercial TransparencyPricing is gated behind a demo request while tier names and feature splits are published, so the shape is visible and the number is not.

The legal product's price structure is published without figures. A low monthly subscription covers all real time transcription and rough drafts, final transcripts by professional legal transcriptionists are charged by the page, and appearance fees apply when a certified court reporter is booked. All three are quoted on request. Colibri's general note taker does publish prices. Its free plan includes five hours of transcription a month. Starter costs $16 a user a month billed annually, or $20 monthly, with 20 hours, and Pro costs $40 or $50 with unlimited transcripts. Enterprise plans are custom. The legal page does not say whether a legal subscription maps to those plans.

Skribe
AA on Commercial TransparencyA buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, and what implementation adds.

A deposition can be priced before speaking to anyone. Hourly rates for both products, what the hosted tier includes, the surcharge for sessions held in person, and the cancellation and billing terms are all published on the home and pricing pages, and the pricing structure is recorded in full. What volume or firmwide terms look like is not stated.

Firm and Practice Coverage

Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.

Colibri Legal
BB on Firm and Practice CoverageSegment and practice coverage is described with substance, short of the boundaries: what is supported is clear, what is not is left open.

The legal edition is pitched to attorneys and paralegals, and through its court reporting partner to proceedings that need a certified record. The legal page names depositions, court hearings, meet and confer sessions, mock trials and internal meetings, on any online platform or the telephone. It works with or without a court reporter, and on proceedings run by either side. The product is English only. No jurisdiction, practice area or firm size is named, and the court reporting partner is not identified.

Skribe
AA on Firm and Practice CoverageWho the product serves is documented precisely: firm segments, in house and government use, and the practice areas actually supported, with the limits stated.

The working boundary is published state by state, with its conditions. The admissibility page tables 42 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia and the federal rules, marking each as allowed, allowed with stipulations, or allowed with stipulations to remote proceedings. Each entry cites the governing rule, for example FRCP 30(b)(3), Cal. Code Civ. Proc. section 2025.330 or Tex. R. Civ. P. 203, and offers a sample notice for recording without a stenographer. The eight states not listed, among them New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington, fall outside the published boundary. The vendor serves litigation teams at firms of every size and covers depositions, examinations under oath and other sworn proceedings, remote or in person. Nothing states which proceeding types or languages the speech recognition and AI handle less well.

The 12 legal signals, side by side

Recorded rather than graded. These are the questions a practitioner has to answer before a tool touches a client matter, and the answers are taken from public material only.

Client Data in Training

Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?

Colibri Legal
Terms silent

Neither the terms of service nor the privacy policy says whether recordings or transcripts train a model, Colibri's or a provider's. Colibri's privacy policy reserves the use of collected information to personalize and improve the services, without naming training. It lists Google ASR and the OpenAI API as processors of the content of a user's meetings and calls. The legal page makes no statement on training.

Skribe
Purpose limited, in the contract

A use right over uploaded content is granted within the service's purposes, including improvement, and training is never named. The terms' section 13 grants Skribe a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable license to use uploaded content for the service's customary and intended purposes and any related purpose, listing research, sale and improving the service among them. The privacy policy authorizes use of personal information to improve algorithms and develop features.

The bound is loose, and nothing anywhere says customer recordings or transcripts are not used to train speech recognition or language models.

Prompt and Output Retention

How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?

Colibri Legal
Disclosed without a period

Personal information is kept as long as law or regulation requires, according to the privacy policy, and made irrecoverable when an account is deleted, which a user requests by email. The general app keeps audio without limit on every plan, and video for two months on the free plan and two years on paid plans. No retention period is stated for legal recordings, rough drafts or certified transcripts.

Skribe
Customer controlled, no zero option

The customer controls removal, and retention is otherwise indefinite. The privacy policy stores personal information indefinitely unless the user asks for removal and warns that copies may remain with outside providers; the terms let subscribers delete material from their account. Backup recordings made under section 4.c are kept under standard retention practices that are not published.

Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation

Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?

Colibri Legal
Not addressed

Paid plans carry a team library of calls, free viewer accounts and a shared team workspace. Nothing describes separating matters, restricting a user to certain cases, or limiting who may view the recording of a particular proceeding.

Skribe
Not addressed

Nothing addresses separation between matters, users or firms. Everyone who attends a hosted deposition receives the video and exhibits, and clips posted to public areas are visible to all visitors under the terms' section 13. This reflects the terms, privacy policy, home page and product pages as of 18 September 2026.

Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice

If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?

Colibri Legal
Disclosure addressed, notice absent

The privacy policy allows disclosure of information to satisfy applicable law, legal process or a governmental request. Nothing commits Colibri to tell the customer that a demand has arrived or to resist it, and nothing addresses requests for recordings of legal proceedings in particular.

Skribe
Disclosure addressed, notice absent

Disclosure in response to legal process is addressed, and notice to the customer is not. The privacy policy permits sharing on a court order, subpoena or government request. Section 4.c of the terms allows backup recordings to be released under a lawful subpoena or court order, edited to exclude off the record segments unless a court orders otherwise. The terms' confidentiality clause requires notice before compelled disclosure where permitted, but it binds users to one another and excludes testimony used for the service's purposes, so it gives the customer no notice commitment from Skribe.

Primary Law Corpus Provenance

Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?

Colibri Legal
Not addressed

The product transcribes the customer's own recordings of proceedings. No body of law, licensed content or outside data source sits behind the output.

Skribe
Not addressed

The AI works over the customer's own recordings and transcripts rather than a body of legal research content, and no external legal source is described. There is nothing to name. As of 18 September 2026, the home page, the AI page and the product pages described none.

Good Law Verification

Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?

Colibri Legal
Not addressed

The product produces transcripts and cites no legal authority, so a check of later history does not arise and none is described.

Skribe
Not addressed

The product does not cite legal authority, so no check of later history arises, and as of 18 September 2026 none is described.

Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior

What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?

Colibri Legal
Not addressed

Nothing describes how a rough draft marks speech the engine could not make out, a low confidence word, crosstalk or an unidentified speaker. The remedy offered is human: a certified final transcript from professional legal transcriptionists, or correction in the editor against the synchronized audio.

Skribe
Not addressed

As of 18 September 2026, nothing describes what the AI does when a deposition does not answer a question, and no confidence indicator is described for the rough transcript.

Fabricated Citation Record

Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?

Colibri Legal
None located

The AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin, which records court decisions worldwide that address hallucinated AI content and the tool involved where known, has no entry naming Colibri, Colibri Legal or Alterra.ai. Colibri produces transcripts of proceedings, not filings or citations to legal authority.

Skribe
None located

Neither the AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin nor trade press reporting showed any court record, as of 18 September 2026, addressing fabricated or hallucinated content in output from Skribe. Litigation history of other kinds, including rulings on whether depositions recorded without a stenographer may be used, is not covered here.

Bar Guidance Alignment

Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?

Colibri Legal
Not addressed

No page engages with lawyers' professional obligations, recording consent rules or any ethics opinion. The legal page invites firms to record proceedings run by the other side instead of buying the transcript from that side's reporter. It says nothing about the rules that govern recording a proceeding or relying on a rough draft.

Skribe
Not addressed

No bar ethics opinion on AI is named. The vendor engages procedural rules on recording without a stenographer, among them Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(3) and Texas rules, and lists the states that permit it. Those are court procedure, not professional responsibility guidance. The home, FAQ and product pages and a vendor blog post were searched on 18 September 2026.

Billing and Fee Posture

Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?

Colibri Legal
Savings claims only

Colibri's legal page pitches cost control to attorneys and paralegals. A firm pays for a certified final only if a case needs one, whether months later or never. It can also record and transcribe a proceeding instead of buying transcripts or recordings from the other side's court reporter. Nothing addresses how transcript costs are passed to clients or shown on a bill.

Skribe
Client cost pass through

The vendor's charge is a deposition cost that reaches the client as a case expense, and client disclosure is not addressed. The product page says that at roughly half the price of traditional court reporting, clients will save money. Nothing addresses how firms should bill or disclose rough transcripts or analysis produced by AI as costs.

Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness

Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?

Colibri Legal
Subprocessors listed

The privacy policy lists each outside processor, what it handles and where: Amazon Web Services for hosting, Google ASR and the OpenAI API for meeting and call content, and support, payment, messaging and sales tools. It does not say which of them a Colibri Legal recording passes through. No client facing disclosure material, security summary or AI terms are published.

Skribe
Not addressed

The privacy policy names only Google and Stripe as third parties receiving information. No speech recognition or AI provider is named, and no data processing agreement is published. The terms, privacy policy and product pages were searched on 18 September 2026.

Court Disclosure Support

If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?

Colibri Legal
Not addressed

A rough draft is labeled as such and kept apart from a certified final, and every transcript stays tied to its recording. Nothing records which engine produced a rough draft, no export of AI use is described, and nothing addresses disclosure of AI transcription in material put before a court.

Skribe
Partial record

AI output is kept apart from verified output and the final transcript carries a sworn declaration, short of a full AI disclosure record. Final transcripts come with a Declaration of Verbatim Transcript attesting accuracy under penalty of perjury, and the rough transcript is labeled as such. Nothing records which model produced AI summaries or answers.

What neither one publishes

The questions both sides leave open

Derived from the records above rather than written, so it cannot favor either vendor. Take these into both conversations and ask each side the same question.

Axes where neither earns credit
  • Privilege and Confidentiality Posture
  • AI Governance and Bias Disclosure
  • Security Certifications and Trust Center
Signals neither addresses in public material
  • Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
  • Primary Law Corpus Provenance
  • Good Law Verification
  • Refusal and Uncertainty Behavior
  • Bar Guidance Alignment

In summary

Colibri Legal

Colibri Legal is the deposition and court reporting product of Colibri.ai, trading as Alterra.ai Inc., a company that also sells AI meeting notes and sales coaching. Attorneys and paralegals record any remote proceeding and follow a real time transcript from Colibri's own speech recognition in Zoom or the web app. Rough drafts arrive immediately, and certified human finals follow within 24 hours when ordered. According to the AI Legal Index, Colibri's privacy policy names its processors, including OpenAI. Its legal pricing is described without figures and quoted on request.

Source: AI Legal Index, 2026

Skribe

Skribe, of Austin, Texas, records depositions, examinations under oath and other sworn proceedings without a stenographer. It works on Zoom or in person with a digital reporter who is a notary, and treats the audio and video recording as the official record. Speech recognition gives a same day rough transcript synced to video, and a human proofread final with a sworn declaration follows in five to seven days. AI finds key moments, summarizes testimony and answers questions linked to the video. According to the AI Legal Index, Skribe publishes its hourly prices and a state by state table of where non stenographic depositions are allowed.

Source: AI Legal Index, 2026

Questions buyers ask

Colibri Legal vs Skribe: which is better for recording depositions?

Skribe publishes its prices, a state by state admissibility table and named customers. Colibri runs its own speech recognition inside Zoom and names its processors, including OpenAI. Skribe's terms disclaim a confidentiality commitment for recordings. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.

Does Skribe keep recording during breaks in a deposition?

Yes. Section 4.c of Skribe's terms, added in July 2026, keeps a backup recording running while the meeting room is open, including recesses and breaks, and allows its release on a subpoena or court order, edited to exclude off the record segments unless a court orders otherwise. Attendees are advised to mute or leave the room. Colibri's published terms do not address backup recording. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.

Are Skribe depositions admissible in my state?

Skribe publishes an admissibility table covering forty two states, the District of Columbia and the federal rules, marking each as allowed, allowed with stipulations, or allowed with stipulations to remote proceedings, citing the rule, such as FRCP 30(b)(3), and offering a sample non stenographic notice. The eight states not listed fall outside its published coverage. Skribe's terms give no guarantee that recorded testimony is admissible. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.

Which AI does Colibri Legal use?

Colibri says its speech to text engine is its own, built with machine learning models, and its privacy policy lists OpenAI among the processors that handle data, with the United States as the place of processing. From the AI Legal Index, based on each vendor's own published materials as of September 25, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.

Disclosure

Neither vendor paid for inclusion, placement or a grade, and neither reviewed this page before it published. Everything on it comes from public material on the dates shown. How the index grades.

Two points stand out. Skribe's confidentiality disclaimer, its perpetual license over uploaded content and its practice of recording through breaks are published terms, set out in sections 4.c and 13 of its terms. It advises attendees to mute or leave the room during recesses. Skribe states that its digital reporters are not certified shorthand reporters, so its method depends on rules allowing non stenographic recording. Colibri Legal's terms of service were last updated in 2020. Neither vendor reviewed this page.

Contact

Correct a record, or ask how something was graded

Every grade and every signal on this index is drawn from public sources and dated. If a record is wrong, out of date, or missing an artifact the index did not locate, send the source and it will be reviewed and the record redated. Vendors are welcome to submit documentation. Nothing on this index is for sale, including a listing, a placement, or a grade.

AI Legal Index

The AI Legal Index is an independent index that tracks changes to AI vendors in legal. It holds 462 vendors across 9 categories, each graded on the same 15 capability axes and recorded against 12 legal signals, from public sources. No vendor pays for inclusion, placement, or rating.

Index Status
Last index update
November 8, 2026
The AI Legal Index is an editorial reference. It is not a regulatory body, not a law firm, and nothing published here is legal advice or a recommendation to retain or avoid a vendor. Records are verified against published sources, bar guidance and public court records. Where a record reads not addressed, the material was not located in public sources on the date shown. See the Methodology page for evaluation standards and limitations.
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