Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape professional services, Harvey is positioning itself as more than just a legal and professional services AI platform.
While AI transforms professional services, Harvey aims to extend its reach beyond traditional legal AI solution provision.
Through expanding product offerings and strategic partnerships, the organisation is seeking to serve a broader spectrum of professional domains while emphasising the critical role of human judgement alongside AI deployment.
Three years ago, Harvey partnered with PwC to help its legal professionals automate tasks such as contract analysis, compliance, due diligence, and legal research, while keeping human leadership to oversee and explore customised AI solutions for clients.
Further, Ansarada is also partnering with Harvey to securely integrate deal documents from its virtual data rooms into Harvey’s AI platform and produce AI-powered deal workflows.
Talking to Lawyers Weekly, Harvey’s chief operating officer, Katie Burke, discussed Harvey’s expansion beyond the legal profession, its major partnerships, and how AI could transform legal work by giving younger lawyers more opportunities to develop critical thinking and professional skills.
Expanding into professional services
As AI continues to reshape professional services, Harvey is positioning itself as more than just an AI platform focused on law.
Through expanding product offerings and strategic partnerships, Burke noted that Harvey is seeking to serve a broader spectrum of professional domains while emphasising the critical role of human judgement alongside the incorporation of AI.
“Harvey’s vision was kind of thinking about the legal and professional services industry more broadly,” Burke said.
“I think it is easiest to explain to people that we’re legal AI because it just helps people wrap their heads around what’s possible, but I think PwC is a great illustration of what’s possible with Harvey long term.”
As Harvey’s presence within major organisations grows, Burke accentuated the impact by also extending beyond just legal teams and into other parts of the business.
“I think what you’re seeing with a lot of customers as we grow in scale, is that the legal team starts driving adoption of Harvey, and then, for example, compliance, security, HR, finance, often think, how do we get our hands on Harvey?” Burke said.
AI reshaping legal work and training
The growth of Harvey prompts wider reflection on how AI will ultimately influence the trajectory of legal practice.
As technology takes on more repetitive and time-consuming tasks, concerns remain about how the next generation of lawyers will develop the experience traditionally gained through that work.
Within Australia, AI is transforming BigLaw graduate training by automating routine tasks, while increasing the importance of AI literacy, commercial judgement, critical thinking and client skills.
Harvey’s view is that, rather than replacing human judgement, AI can create more space for critical thinking and mentorship – which, in recent times, is becoming increasingly difficult to access as senior practitioners face growing workloads and expectations of constant responsiveness.
“AI should be not just replacing human judgement, but instead augmenting it, so always having humans in the loop to review things,” Burke said.
“Sometimes people think you learn the field of law by spending long, late hours at night, not sleeping; I think what we’re seeing is the quality of the reps matters more than the quantity.”
Burke highlighted that such an evolution may potentially influence the development of emerging legal practitioners, as AI frees up space for analytical reasoning, and new ideas.
“AI adoption could lead to more critical thinking versus less, and then more time actually getting apprenticeship and guidance,” Burke said.
“And I think if done well, there’s a world in which AI creates more space for that creativity and judgement.”
