A&O Shearman has partnered with Harvey to create legal workflow tools that leverage A&O Shearman’s senior lawyers’ knowledge across four practice areas, with that set to expand in the future.
Described as agents, the first four tools focus on antitrust filing analysis, cybersecurity, fund formation, and loan review. They will be rolled out internally as well as being sold to clients and other law firms. They are the product of senior lawyers working with David Wakeling’s 30-strong AI Advisory Practice and Markets Innovation Group, together with Harvey.
A&O Shearman has an established relationship with Harvey, having worked with the San Francisco-founded company since 2022, announcing the relationship publicly in 2023. Lawyers internally use both Harvey and ContractMatrix, a generative AI contract review and drafting tool built in collaboration with Microsoft and Harvey.
The magic circle firm, which has a long history of productising its knowledge, already licenses ContractMatrix to clients globally. While the firm has no plans to disclose the revenue of that business, in a recent conversation with Legal IT Insider, Wakeling said, “It’s a nice business that has seen a lot of growth.”
He added: “We are sitting on an astonishing level of subject matter expertise. We do the most deals across the world and are really starting to leverage that knowledge.
“We are going toe-to-toe on technology and can now start scaling on a decentralised basis and that is where we are looking next. It’s very hard for technology companies to do that unless it’s in partnership with a law firm.”
Wakeling said that the firm’s priority is not to emulate a Silicon Valley startup and hire lots of engineers and data scientists but to continue to build a law firm that is serious about innovation. “Our approach is strategic partnerships with technology companies,” he said.
Allen & Overy, which merged Shearman & Sterling in 2024, was one of if not the first large law firm to productise its knowledge base. From 2002 it sold online derivatives and risk products via aosphere, which it sold last year to private equity funds Inflexion and Endicott Capital.
See also:
Allen & Overy divests majority stake in aosphere to two PE fund partners