Global Firm Allen & Overy Rolling Out Harvey.ai

Is this a game-changer?

Feb 15

It’s Wednesday. There is no webinar today, there is however some breaking legal disruption. 👇👇👇

I know all about law firm press releases, which has almost become a meme. But this law firm announcement strikes me as a very big deal. Today, Allen & Overy today announced that the firm was, “excited to roll out Harvey across our firm, allowing 3,500 of our colleagues to make use of this revolutionary tool.” The release went on to say, “Harvey is not just another platform, but a game-changer.”

I want to be cynical about this, and I’m sure others will be. Again, law firm innovation press releases have earned that cynicism. But this to me appears to be a very big deal.

Zach Abramowitz @ZachAbramowitz

Someone just sent me this @AllenOvery not wasting any time rolling out Harvey (backed by @OpenAI) to all of its attorneys My first impression: this is a BIG deal

linkedin.comAllen & Overy on LinkedIn: Meet Harvey | Allen & Overy | 20 commentsHarvey is a ground-breaking generative AI platform that is designed to tackle legal problems. It is built on OpenAI’s latest models, utilising legal industry… | 20 comments on LinkedIn

Readers of this newsletter will remember that Harvey.ai is a fine tuned version of GPT tailored for legal. In fact, it even has an investment from OpenAI. What can it do? Base on the announcement, looks like a lot.

(((Jonathan Maas))) @MaasJonathan

But what will it actually do?

Zach Abramowitz @ZachAbramowitz

Someone just sent me this @AllenOvery not wasting any time rolling out Harvey (backed by @OpenAI) to all of its attorneys My first impression: this is a BIG deal https://t.co/PRR2BqVhXa

But here’s the thing: ChatGPT and GenAI have general applicability. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has several times explained that it knows a little about everything. Normally, I would say that the vague description is an indication that it does nothing particularly well. But I’m not saying that today.

Here’s another way to think about what it can do: read, understand, analyze, issue spot and draft responsive documents. Does that apply to a lot of contract work? Sure. Litigation? Yep, that too. The reason this is hard to swallow is that we’re stuck in a framework where there are contract tools for contracts, eDiscovery tools for discovery, drafting tools for drafting etc. The AI revolution could potentially change that paradigm.

I think Harvey unprecedented and it is likely a game changer. But there are others on the way and the capabilities of these tools is going to be weapons grade. Maybe it’s more accurate to call Harvey a game-starter.

I’m Zach Abramowitz and you have been legally disrupted!