Harvey on GPT 5.5, Clio vs the Status Quo, Legal Innovators +

What an incredible week for legal AI – so much is happening now! We start the Wrap with Harvey’s analysis of OpenAI’s new GPT-5.5 frontier model.

Harvey used its own BigLaw Bench evaluation suite to stress test the model and found that it has ‘built on the strengths of GPT-5.4 with improved substantive accuracy, stronger organizational structure, and more consistent formatting across legal practice areas’.

‘Early access evaluations show GPT-5.5 delivering gains across both transactional and litigation tasks, with particular strength in risk assessment, deal management, and analysis of litigation filings. GPT-5.5 scored 91.7%, up from GPT-5.4’s 91.0%. This is one of the highest scores we’ve seen to date. The model achieved 43% perfect scores and 87% of tasks scored above 0.80, with zero scores below 0.50.’

And below are the BLB scores. It’s improved – on the overall score – by 0.7%. Not a huge leap, but in the current context of AI improvement, it’s notable.

Also, for reference, here is Harvey’s recent BLB review of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 – which seems to have gotten a mixed reception from LLM experts in the wider market in relation to non-legal uses. Below is its score for legal tasks. As you can see, it’s improved a bit on 4.6 – also by 0.7%.

One thing is notable for both new models: the overall improvement in this iteration is smaller than the previous ones, even if some specific steps forward on certain tasks may be greater. E.g. The previous Opus 4.5 went up by 1.9%, and GPT 5.2 to 5.4 went up by 1.2%.

Does this mean that model improvement is slowing down?

One thing that AL has to underline is that we are moving in the right direction. We are incrementally moving to the mid-90s, and that’s great. Also, we have the prospect of Anthropic’s Mythos hitting the market, or a version of it, which is meant to have incredible performance.

So, for now, the improvements have slowed a little, but if we are to believe Dario Amodei at Anthropic, their Opus 4.7 is only a pause for an intake of breath, before charging onwards and upwards.

Either way, Niko Grupen, Head of Applied Research at Harvey, concluded: ‘GPT-5.5 shows improvement in legal reasoning, organizational structure, and audience calibration. These are the kind of practical gains that move the needle for legal practitioners. This performance also translates to benchmark scores, with GPT-5.5 scoring 91.7% overall with perfect scores on 43% of tasks.’

See more here on models from Harvey.

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Clio held a great event in London last week and AL was there to chair a panel on legal AI adoption – naturally. Here are some of the key comments from Clio’s Head of Strategy, Ed Walters, and also CEO, Jack Newton, made during the conference.

Ed Walters –

On the subject of how AI is changing legal work production.

‘Clients are not buying brute force compute. They are buying judgement. Brute force is an artefact. We should let it go. This is like law firms giving up eDiscovery.’

‘Why are we charging for the friction of inputs?’

‘Clients have gone from ‘don’t use AI’, to if you don’t use it you may not get our work!’

‘There is a compounding benefit from investing in AI [and you] should be getting more out of AI each year.’

‘Young lawyers will not want to work at a firm that does not use AI.’

And my favourite line: ‘The status quo is indefensible!’

And referring to the billable hour: ‘Global law firms raised hourly rates by 9%. They are accelerating towards the iceberg.’

Great stuff.

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And Jack Newton had some great comments as well.

‘The scepticism about what AI would achieve has gone away now.’

‘Some law firms will evolve and become more competitive, and run circles around the firms that have not embraced AI.’

‘AI unlocks a better work product for the clients. AI allows us to evolve to a higher level of law firm.’

Newton then compared legal to the world of software, and noted: ‘Engineering teams with AI are an order of magnitude greater than before. We need to think of the best use of a human lawyer’s time. High performing firms will automate everything that can be with AI.’

However, he noted that despite what some may think: ‘AI will make the profession more human than before.’ I.e. lawyers will be freed from so much rote work that they can focus on giving real advice and adding value as professionals.  

Also great stuff.

And thanks to Gareth Dickson, Partner, Mishcon de Reya; Geoff Dragon, Partner, Shoosmiths; Kim Wedral, Partner, Taylor Wessing; and Editha Nemsic, Forward Deployed Engineer, Clio, for joining me on stage last week. It was a great discussion that really showed how AI is now having a real impact across many law firms. And thanks to Clio for the invitation to be a speaker / moderator.

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Right, onto some news about the two Legal Innovators conferences in Paris and California this June. We hope you can come to both!

Express Registration is Now Open – simply fill in the form if you are in a senior role inside a law firm or inhouse and your ticket is free! (Note: vendors and consultants, pls use the usual ticket method.)

A Legal Tech Conference For All of Europe – Legal Innovators Europe – Paris – June 24 and 25.

Express route to your ticket here.

And, 

Legal Innovators California, the landmark West Coast legal tech event, will take place on June 10 and 11, in the heart of the Bay Area, the home to many of the world’s leading AI businesses – and plenty of legal tech pioneers as well! More information and tickets here.

Express route to your Legal Innovators California June 10th and 11th ticket here.

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And now for some videos. First up, using AI to create training simulators, in this case AltaClaro with its DepoSim.

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Plus, AL talks to legal consultant Olivier Chaduteau about legal AI transformation ahead of the Legal Innovators Europe conference in Paris – (see above) – June 24 and 25.

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Special Video Bonus: this week AL, Eudia and ServiceNow held a webinar about the two companies’ new partnership and we explored inhouse AI use, and the development of digital twins. You can find a video of the event here (via Eudia). It was a great discussion. Thanks to Eudia’s CEO Omar Haroun and ServiceNow’s Andrew Brereton.

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That’s all for now folks, have a great weekend!

Richard Tromans, Founder, Artificial Lawyer, and Chair of the Legal Innovators conferences.