Magic Circle Firm Slaughter and May Adopts Harvey

And so the Magic Circle continues to pick their legal AI platforms. Slaughter and May, after a long period of consideration, has gone all-in with Harvey.

Linklaters went with Legora, A&O Shearman also famously went very early with Harvey, Freshfields has gone large with Anthropic, and also earlier with Google, and Clifford Chance has picked….hmmm. AL is still checking that.

The esteemed UK-based firm said that: ‘[We] are adopting Harvey’s full platform across all practice areas to support its lawyers on multi-jurisdictional matters spanning M&A, due diligence, regulatory research, and document analysis.’

David Johnson, Slaughter and May Managing Partner, commented: ‘Adopting Harvey firmwide allows us to enhance the excellent service that we provide to our clients. Critical to our adoption is the investment we make in our people, as the vital human layer that supervises AI.’

Sally Wokes, partner and Head of Slaughter and May’s Innovation Committee, added: ‘Our differentiator is the depth and quality of our experience. AI allows us to connect and apply that expertise in different situations, enhancing the collective judgment, creativity and problem solving we bring to client matters.’

Harvey was selected ‘for its agentic capabilities and security, its proven experience leading AI transformation inside major law firms, its presence across the firm’s client base, and its ability to meet the firm’s exacting standards’, they said.

Harvey’s Transformation Office, which includes ‘seasoned legal experts, will work alongside the firm to support the rollout and ensure AI is adopted responsibly and effectively across the business’, they added.

Winston Weinberg, CEO of Harvey, concluded: ‘Slaughter and May has built its reputation for excellence over 130 years by pairing deep legal expertise and outstanding lawyers with a willingness to embrace new technologies. We are honoured to support the firm and its clients as they apply AI to some of the most consequential legal work in the world.’

Is this a big deal?

Well, if you believe that the Magic Circle are very influential in the legal world….then yes, absolutely it matters. In fact, every major move they make matters, as their choices influence other major firms and in turn those choices trickle down through the market. Slaughters in particular has a global ‘best friends’ network of leading firms – so it will be interesting to see how this follows through.

There are also only five Magic Circle firms, and as noted above, four have now clearly picked a side, as it were. On CC, AL is still checking. Or, CC, if you’re reading this, drop AL a line.

More about Harvey here.

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