Legal AI giant Harvey picks London to lead pro bono push

Legal AI firm Harvey has chosen London to launch a new product designed to help lawyers tackle pro bono work, as the US-headquartered start-up looks to accelerate its growth into new areas of the legal industry.

The new pro bono offering, launched in London and available to Harvey’s customers in the UK, US and Australia from Tuesday, will give law firms tools to help tackle the high volumes of free legal advice they offer across areas like housing support, veterans services and social welfare claims.

Harvey has partnered with senior pro bono leaders from Ashurst Perkins Coie, DLA Piper and Nelson Mullins to launch the new initiative. Speaking with City AM, Harvey’s chief operating officer, Katie Burke, said the company had chosen London as it was “an epicentre for the legal market”.

“So many of our customers are either based there or global multinational firms are conducting a ton of business there, so when we thought about where to put the responsible business programme, it made sense that it would be headquartered out of London,” she said.

“There’s a lot more focus on how businesses should think about responsible AI, and so we want to be pioneering that conversation alongside our customers,” Burke added.

Founded in 2022, Harvey’s first customer was City-based law firm, A&O Shearman. Burke said “our business would not exist fundamentally” without them.

“It’s grown significantly since then. Now we have hundreds of folks based in London. We’ve gotten so big, we’re expanding out of our existing floor in King’s Cross, which is a good sign,” Burke said.

The chief operating officer added that “it’s telling that in the investment we’re making we’re headquartering both of those key initiatives out of London. And it’s a testament to the quality of talent we see there, but also the demand from our customer base.”

Responsibility initiatives set Harvey apart

The legal tech market is a competitive landscape as Harvey jostles for market share with the likes of Legora and Clio.

Telecoms giant Vodafone also pushed into the legal tech market in August after announcing it was co-developing a legal tech tool.

However, Burke said the pro bono programme sets Harvey apart as it is important to their customers “from a business perspective, but also on the personal side of things.”

“In pretty much every customer meeting I’ve been in or every prospect customer meeting, we were hearing about the importance of this initiative,” she told City AM.