Stillnote for lawyers
Client calls, matter strategy, settlement talk. None of it leaves your Mac.
Stillnote is a private AI note-taker for lawyers. Cloud tools like Otter, Fireflies, and Granola upload your meeting audio to their servers to process it. Stillnote records, transcribes, and summarizes entirely on your Mac, so a client intake call, a candid co-counsel debate, and a settlement discussion never leave your device, never reach a Stillnote server, and never train a model. No bot joins the call, so your client never sees an unknown guest in the attendee list.
Native macOS app (Apple Silicon).
The question is who else ends up holding the conversation
A normal week of legal practice runs on conversations other people are trusting you to keep: an intake call where a client describes the worst thing that happened to them, a witness preparation session, co-counsel arguing candidly about the weakness in your own case, a settlement number nobody wants written down anywhere yet.
Most AI note-takers are cloud services. To give you a summary, they either upload the meeting audio to their servers to transcribe it, or they send a recorder bot to join the call. Once a conversation is uploaded, how it is stored, who can access it, how long it is retained, and what it is used for are governed by someone else's infrastructure and someone else's policies. That is a vendor question, a retention question, and a due-diligence question, all attached to material you did not generate and cannot un-share.
We are not going to tell you what your obligations require. Duties of confidentiality and professional secrecy, your law society's guidance on technology and client information, and your firm's own retention policy are yours to interpret, and reasonable practitioners read them differently. What we can give you is one plain fact about the software, which you can then apply to your own rules:
- There is no third-party processor in the loop, because there is no upload. Recording, transcription, and summarization all run on your Mac.
- There is no vendor retention window to negotiate, because Stillnote never receives the conversation in the first place.
- There is no bot in the attendee list, so the meeting itself does not change and your client is not introduced to a guest you have to explain.
- There is no training-data question, because your conversations are never used as training data.
The bot version has a second, more human problem. A note-taker bot appears in the attendee list, someone has to admit it, and a client may get a recording-started notice from an unknown participant at the exact moment they were deciding how much to tell you. People talk differently when a recorder is visibly in the room, and in this line of work that difference is the whole conversation.
How Stillnote keeps the meeting on your Mac
Stillnote never joins the call. It listens through your Mac's own audio, so there is no bot participant, no join request, and no recorder to explain. That is why it works the same way across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack huddles, Webex, phone calls on speaker, and in-person meetings. If your Mac can hear it, Stillnote can take notes on it.
Everything after that happens locally. An on-device Whisper speech model transcribes the audio on your Mac, and the transcript streams live while the meeting is happening, so there is no end-of-meeting wait. A local language model then writes the clean summary, key decisions, and action items roughly three seconds after you hang up, built on top of any rough notes you typed, so your own words are preserved.
Every transcript goes into a full-text search index that also lives on your device, so you can ask your matters questions later: what the client said about the timeline in the first intake call, which date the other side floated, what you committed to on Tuesday. Because the whole pipeline is local, Stillnote keeps working with no internet connection, which also covers the client's conference room and the courthouse hallway.
A Tuesday of client calls, with Stillnote running
Three client calls, a co-counsel strategy session, and an in-person intake. You open each one the normal way; no bot to admit, no per-meeting setup, nothing to explain to a client who is already nervous. Stillnote names each meeting automatically, so the day does not end with five files called New Meeting. During the calls you type the occasional rough note; the live transcript fills in everything you did not catch while you were actually listening to the person in front of you.
Three seconds after each hangup you have a clean summary, the decisions, and the action items, before the next call starts. The follow-ups you promised across the whole day, send the client the document list, chase the expert, get back to the other side with a date, roll up as To-Dos across meetings, one list instead of five sets of scribbles.
On Friday, prepping the matter, you search across everything: every mention of the disputed date, what the client actually said in intake versus last week. The answers come from an index on your own machine. Nothing about the week's conversations exists anywhere else.
What Stillnote does not do
A page aimed at lawyers should be straight about the limits, so here they are before you download anything:
- It is not a compliance program. Stillnote does not make your firm compliant with anything, and no vendor can hand you that. Your obligations remain yours.
- It is not an official transcript. Speaker naming is suggestion-based and editable, and AI summaries can be wrong. Review both before relying on them, and use a court reporter where a certified record is required.
- It does not handle consent for you. You are the one recording, and consent requirements vary by jurisdiction and by who is on the call.
- It is macOS only, on Apple Silicon, running macOS 13 or later. There is no Windows build and no Intel Mac build today, so a Windows-standardized firm cannot deploy it right now.
- It is not legal advice, and neither is this page.
Honest answers for lawyers
Where do my client conversations actually go?
Nowhere. Stillnote is 100% on-device: recording, transcription, and summarization all run locally on your Mac. Your meeting audio and transcripts never leave your device, never reach a Stillnote server, and are never used to train a model. There is no upload step to audit, because there is no upload.
Does a bot join my client calls?
No. Stillnote listens through your own Mac's audio instead of joining the meeting, so no extra participant appears in the attendee list and your client does not get a recording-started notice from an unknown guest. It works the same way across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack huddles, Webex, calls on speaker, and in-person meetings.
Does using Stillnote make my firm compliant with its confidentiality obligations?
No, and we will not claim otherwise. Stillnote is a note-taking tool, not a compliance program. Your duties of confidentiality and professional secrecy, your law society's rules on technology and client information, and your own retention and conflicts policies are yours to interpret and apply. What we can tell you is a fact about the software: no third party receives the conversation, because nothing is uploaded. Whether that fact satisfies your obligations is a question for you and your regulator.
What about recording consent with clients, opposing counsel, or witnesses?
Recording consent is your responsibility. You are the one recording; Stillnote is the software you record with. Consent requirements vary by jurisdiction and by who is on the call, and they can differ for a client, an opposing party, or a witness. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and you should apply your own rules before you hit record.
Can Stillnote tell me who said what in a multi-party call?
Partly, and we would rather be honest about it. Stillnote separates each speaker and can suggest names by reading names shown on screen during video calls and by recognizing returning speakers across meetings, all on-device. Suggested names are always editable. This is suggestion-based labeling, not a certified record. As with any AI tool, review the transcript and summary before relying on them, and never treat either as a substitute for a court reporter or an official transcript.
Does it work with no internet, like in a courthouse or a client's office?
Yes. Because the whole pipeline runs locally on your Mac, Stillnote keeps working with no internet connection. That covers an in-person client meeting, a conference room with hostile guest wifi, and anywhere else your Mac can hear the conversation.
What does Stillnote cost?
Free for 5 enhanced notes a month with no credit card required, plus 1 connected calendar and AI search across the last 7 days. Plus is $8 a month for 30 enhanced notes, up to 3 connected calendars, 90-day AI search, custom note templates, and Ask Stillnote Q&A. Pro is $13 a month for unlimited notes, unlimited calendars, AI search across all your history, and priority support. Billing happens in-app.
What Macs does Stillnote run on? Is there a Windows version?
Stillnote is a native macOS app for Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 13 or later. There is no Windows build and no Intel Mac build today, so a firm standardized on Windows cannot deploy it right now.
Take the next client call with notes that stay yours
Stillnote is free for 5 enhanced notes a month, with no credit card required. Install it, take one real meeting, and check the transcript never left your Mac.
Native macOS app (Apple Silicon).
Keep reading
Comparing Stillnote with the cloud tool your firm uses today? These side-by-side pages cover the on-device, no-bot difference in detail.
This page describes Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and Granola at the category level (cloud-based note-takers that process meetings on their servers, often by sending a bot to join the call) and does not assert specifics about any tool's internal implementation. Product details can change. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and nothing here creates a solicitor-client relationship or tells you how your professional obligations apply to your practice; consult your own law society's rules and guidance. Recording-consent requirements vary by jurisdiction and are your responsibility. AI-generated transcripts and summaries can contain errors and are not a certified record. Stillnote is a native macOS app on Apple Silicon, made by LeapVision Technologies Inc.