Charles Russell Speechlys (CRS) has selected Harvey as its second-generation generative AI solution after a rigorous, multi-vendor evaluation that saw Harvey come first in every category. Harvey replaces Springbok AI, after the company and its leadership team was acquired by Cleary Gottlieb earlier this year.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, CRS’ director of Advanced Client Solutions, Joe Cohen said of the new selection process: “We got together our requirements document, which was very long because we were one of the first law firms to roll out a GenAI tool and we were well informed as to what ‘good’ looks like. We sent the RFP out to 10 vendors and took the decision to only go for the biggest, as we couldn’t risk another acquisition.
“We got down to five vendors, and then had 45 lawyers around the firm take part in a bake off. All of the lawyers were super users of the Springbok platform, so among the top 10% of users. The idea was that they would know how the platform should perform. They tested five each and filled out a feedback questionnaire per vendor, so we ended up with 6,000 pieces of feedback.”
Lawyers were asked questions around the ease of use, speed and accuracy of legal use cases such legal queries; document review; summarisation; translation and drafting.
“Harvey came first in all nine categories by at least one point out of 10,” Cohen said. “It scored 8.4 out of 10 overall, and 8.7 out of 10 in one. The next best was 7.4 and the others were in the sixes. These are people who lived on Springbok, so there no question about quality or functionality – they unequivocally said Harvey.”
CRS is going to license Harvey for all legal professionals globally. Cohen said: “It’s a big roll out and I’m sure everyone is going to be delighted with Harvey.” The firm is an iManage client and a LexisNexis client, and will be looking at both integrations with Harvey. It is porting over all the bots it has built in Springbok to Harvey. Cohen said: “We built 26 preset prompts where the output goes to specific places, such as automated lease reports where the output is structured.”
Winston Weinberg, CEO and co-founder of Harvey said: “Charles Russell Speechlys approached this decision with a high bar and a deep focus on feedback from their lawyers. We’re thrilled to see them move forward with Harvey after such a comprehensive evaluation. Their ambition to raise the bar on how lawyers work aligns with our mission, and we’re excited to help them get there.”