Small law firms
Legal transcription software for small law firms to keep client conversations in the office
Ghosty Notes records intake calls, client updates and case strategy on a Mac with Apple Silicon, transcribes them on that same machine, and writes the notes into a folder you choose.
Ghosty Notes runs on macOS on a Mac with Apple Silicon. Intel Macs cannot run the on-device transcription model and are not supported.
no notetaker in this list
what the other side sees while you record
Most of a small firm's recordable conversation never reaches a court reporter: intake calls, client check-ins, expert conferences, the twenty minutes two partners spend deciding how to plead. Writing them up eats billable time, and remembering them badly six months later is worse. The usual fix is a cloud note-taker, which solves the typing and hands a privileged conversation to a company you have never met.
Ghosty Notes works the other way. It records through the Mac's own system audio, so nothing joins the call and no client, opposing counsel or expert sees an extra attendee. Speech becomes text using a model running on your machine, and the result is a plain markdown file wherever you point it: the matter folder itself, indexed by the document system you already run.
Local transcription, unlimited meetings and an MCP server that lets Claude or ChatGPT search your own past meetings are free. Pro is $5.00 a month or $54.00 a year and adds cloud calendar sync, hosted AI models, faster chat across many meetings, Obsidian sync and speaker identification.
Client confidences, privilege, and the ABA guidance from 2024
ABA Formal Opinion 512, issued 29 July 2024, addresses generative AI in practice. On self-learning GAI tools it says "a client's informed consent is required prior to inputting information relating to the representation into such a GAI tool", and it closes the easy escape route: "merely adding general, boiler-plate provisions to engagement letters purporting to authorize the lawyer to use GAI is not sufficient". Read together, those two sentences describe a conversation with a real client about a real tool, before the tool touches the matter, not a clause bolted onto the retainer at signing. Whether a particular note-taker falls inside that description is a judgement about the tool. Where the recording goes is not, and when transcription runs on the Mac in your office no provider receives the file at all.
The privilege point runs alongside it. Disclosure to a third party can waive attorney-client privilege unless that party is necessary to the representation, which is why stenographers, interpreters and other agents of the lawyer have long been treated as inside the circle. Whether a cloud AI vendor, with its own subprocessors and its own retention policy, sits inside that circle is an argument someone would have to make, and it is unsettled. We are not telling you the argument would fail. We are saying it is one you would rather not make about a recording of your client, on a motion, with your own vendor choice as the subject. A tool where no outside party receives the recording never puts you there.
Then there is hardware, because law is a Windows profession with a real Mac minority. The ABA 2023 Solo and Small Firm TechReport puts Mac OS as the primary operating system for 16% of solo practitioners, 12% at firms of 2 to 9 attorneys and 11% of all respondents. Ghosty Notes needs a Mac with Apple Silicon and is built for that group. If two of your six partners work on Macs, those two can run it and the firm carries on unchanged, because nothing here assumes office-wide adoption.
What it will not do is pool anything, and that is a design decision rather than a missing feature. There is no firm library, no administrator view and no way for a managing partner to search another lawyer's meetings. Each licence is one person's, and the notes stay on that person's Mac until they share the file. For a firm whose supervision depends on a central log of what everyone recorded, this is the wrong tool, and better read here than discovered after buying six licences.
- ABA Formal Opinion 512, 29 July 2024
- Requires informed client consent before matter information is entered into a self-learning generative AI tool, and says boiler-plate engagement letter wording is not sufficient.
- ABA 2023 Solo and Small Firm TechReport
- Mac OS is the primary operating system for 16% of solo practitioners, 12% at firms of 2 to 9 attorneys, and 11% of all respondents.
Where it fits in a practice week
The intake call
You listen and ask better questions instead of typing. Afterwards you have the transcript and a summary of the facts, dates, parties and documents the caller mentioned, ready for a new matter file or a conflicts check.
The client update nobody wrote down
Twenty-minute status calls are the ones remembered wrongly later, usually about what the client agreed to. The transcript lands as markdown in the matter folder, filed with the correspondence rather than in a vendor web app somebody has to log into.
Expert and witness preparation
Prep sessions produce the detail you need again at trial, and they are the ones you would least like to upload. Recorded locally, the audio of an expert thinking aloud never leaves the machine, and the summary gets you back to the point they made in hour three.
Asking your own case history a question
The MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor search past meetings on your machine. "What did the client say about the March invoice" is answerable without opening six files, and the search runs against your own notes, not a vendor's index.
What lawyers ask before they download it
- Can I use these transcripts as the record of a deposition or hearing?
- No, and this deserves a blunt answer rather than a careful one. We are not a court reporting service: no certified transcript, no certificate of accuracy, no human review pass, nothing you can file, lodge or put in front of a judge as the record. Depositions, hearings and anything else that goes on the record still need a certified reporter, and you should budget for one as you do now. Ghosty Notes is for the larger pile of talking that never gets transcribed at all: intake, client calls, expert conferences, internal strategy.
- Do I still have to tell the client I am recording?
- Yes. Recording-consent rules vary by state and some require every party to agree, and processing on your own machine changes none of that. ABA Formal Opinion 512 separately addresses consent for putting matter information into a generative AI tool. The practical difference is that the conversation is easier when the honest answer to "where does it go" is that it stays in your office.
- Our firm is mostly on Windows.
- Then most of your firm cannot run it. Ghosty Notes is macOS only and needs Apple Silicon, because the transcription model runs on that hardware. Intel Macs are not supported and there is no Windows build. Partial adoption does work, since each person's notes are their own files, so the Mac users can run it without the firm standardising on anything.
- What do I tell my malpractice carrier about the AI tool we use?
- Describe the architecture, not a certification, because we hold none and claim none. In local mode the recording and the transcription stay on the lawyer's Mac, no vendor receives the audio, and retention is whatever your own policy says, because the files are on your disk. Switch on Pro's hosted AI models and transcript text goes to that provider, a different answer you should give accurately.
- Can the managing partner see everyone else’s meeting notes?
- No. There is no shared library, no admin console and no seat management, because none of it exists in the product. A firm buys individual licences, each person's notes stay on their own machine, and sharing means sending someone a markdown file. If your supervision approach requires a central record of what every lawyer recorded and summarised, this does not give you one.
- Are there other tools that transcribe on the device?
- Yes. MacWhisper and Superwhisper both transcribe on-device, and Basil ships a law-firm tier of its own, so it would be false to claim we are alone. The combination differs: no bot in the call, plain markdown in a folder you pick, and an MCP server on the free tier so your own AI tools can search your history locally.
Against the tools firms are actually choosing between
| Ghosty Notes | Alternatives | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the recording is processed | On the Mac, by a model running on the machine | Otter and Fireflies upload audio and transcribe it on their servers |
| What the other side of the call sees | Nothing. Recording runs off the Mac system audio | A named bot joins as a visible participant |
| Who holds the file afterwards | You do, as markdown in the folder you chose | The vendor, under its own retention policy |
| Practice-management AI (Clio Duo, MyCase IQ) | Independent of it, writing files it can index | Useful inside that system, with matter data in the vendor cloud |
| Certified transcripts for filing | Not offered. Use a certified court reporter | Also not offered by these tools |
| Searching your meeting history from an AI tool | MCP server on the free tier, over your local notes | The vendor chat, over data the vendor holds |
| Cost per lawyer | Free tier, or Pro at $5.00 a month or $54.00 a year | Per-seat subscriptions, billed annually |
Questions from firms
- What is free and what is paid?
- On-device transcription, unlimited meetings, the MCP server and Apple Calendar detection are free, with no minute cap and no account needed. Pro is $5.00 a month or $54.00 a year and adds Google and Outlook calendar sync, hosted AI models, cross-meeting chat, Obsidian sync and speaker identification.
- If I turn on Pro’s hosted AI models, what leaves my Mac?
- The transcript text, and only that. Audio never leaves the device on any tier, and in local mode nothing is sent at all. Hosted models and fast cross-meeting chat send transcript text to that provider, so for a privileged conversation treat the switch as a matter-by-matter decision rather than a default.
- Which Mac do I need?
- A Mac with Apple Silicon. Intel Macs are not supported and there is no Windows build, so in a mostly-Windows firm only the Mac users can run it. Partial adoption is fine, since each person's notes are their own files.
- Does a bot appear in the Zoom or Teams participant list?
- No. It records the audio your Mac is already playing and hearing, so there is no extra attendee to see, no meeting link to admit and nothing for a client to ask about mid-call.
- Can the notes live inside our existing matter folders?
- Yes. You choose the output folder and files are plain markdown, so a document system that indexes a folder on disk indexes these too, and nobody learns a new application to file them.
- Does it work without an internet connection?
- In local mode, yes. The model downloads once and then runs on the machine, so a call taken on a bad hotel connection still produces a transcript. Pro's hosted models and calendar sync do need a connection.
- Does it work for an in-person client meeting?
- It is built around calls taken on the Mac. In person it works only as well as the Mac's microphone picks up the room, which across a conference table with several speakers is often not well enough to rely on.
- Can it tell me who said what?
- Speaker identification is a Pro feature and runs on your Mac like everything else. Treat the labels as a first pass to correct, not a certified attribution of who spoke, particularly with more than two voices.
- Can we buy it for the whole firm on one invoice?
- Not today. There is no team plan, no central billing and no admin console. Several lawyers at one firm can each hold their own licence, and that is the extent of it.
Keep the client call on the machine in your office
Free for macOS on Apple Silicon. No bot, and no meeting cap.
Download free for Mac