Customer Story
Turning Curiosity Into Culture: How ArentFox Schiff Made :Harvey: Core to Client Work
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Anthony V. Lupo
Chairman at ArentFox Schiff
About ArentFox Schiff
ArentFox Schiff is a leading firm where business and law intersect. With more than 650 lawyers and policy professionals, the firm advises corporations, governments, individuals, and trade associations worldwide. As industry insiders, they partner with clients to develop practical business strategies and sophisticated legal solutions that achieve today’s targets while anticipating tomorrow’s challenges.
Opportunity
“We have gone from a handful of curious users to hundreds of committed attorneys in months, not because it was mandated, but because Harvey quickly proved indispensable to how our lawyers work,” said Ed Macnamara, Chief Innovation Officer. But that hasn’t happened overnight.
Two years ago, ArentFox Schiff recognized the early promise of generative AI and began training attorneys and staff, providing early access to custom-wrapped GPTs. Despite having a core group of experienced users, the firm found trials of generative AI platforms filled with potential but ultimately underwhelming. Document limits, a lack of legal grounding, and slow improvements limited the legal use cases the firm could handle.
"We almost gave up on generative AI platforms," said Doug Schulz, Innovation Manager. "But we stuck to our VC-Innovation Playbook and found a willing partner in Harvey."
Solution
One of the tenets of ArentFox Schiff's VC-Innovation Playbook is: Think big, start small. This approach gives the firm flexibility to try new initiatives quickly while encouraging growth rather than mandating adoption. A few weeks after selecting Harvey, the firm launched a focused pilot with attorneys who had shown curiosity with earlier tools. With hands-on training from Harvey’s team, attorneys quickly applied Harvey to client matters.
“The Harvey team led training sessions, brainstormed ideas, and funneled our feedback to their engineers. Their trainers — all former attorneys — showed us how to use Harvey in real-world situations. We look for partners as much as tools and Harvey has proven to be excellent at both,” Schulz said.
Momentum built quickly. A turning point came when a partner described Harvey as his “newest associate and secretary” during a live demo. The session, attended by lawyers across the firm, showed firsthand how Harvey was reshaping legal work.
Within six months, adoption skyrocketed from 12 weekly active users to hundreds. Today, over half of the firm’s attorneys rely on Harvey each week to elevate their practice.
What Attorneys Say About Harvey
Brian Schneider, Partner
- More Time for Advice: "The biggest difference is where I get to spend my time, more on client advice, less on the drudgery.”
- Faster Insights: Instead of hours piecing together scattered sources, Brian uses Harvey to surface insights, organize arguments, and generate first drafts. “It’s like having a junior associate who gives me a framework I can sharpen — whether for a letter, a brief, or a contract.”
- Client Impact: “I had Harvey prepare a memo for a board of directors. It saved the CEO and his staff hours of work, and made me look like a hero.”
Rachael Skigen, Senior Associate
- Eliminating the Blank Page Problem: “Harvey gives me a structured starting point, eliminating the paralysis of the blank page so I can focus on refining a higher-level analysis and accelerating more creative problem-solving for clients.”
- Expedited Workflows: Rachael uses Harvey’s Vault to instantly search for and compare provisions across lease agreements. “With the ability to instantly search, compare, and extract provisions across a curated database of agreements, I can focus on more customized negotiations.”
- Client Engagement: “By automating the routine, Harvey enables me to devote more attention to understanding client objectives, anticipating issues, and ironically, being more of an efficient and engaged ‘human’ for the client.”
Impact
With Harvey, attorneys spend less time on mechanical tasks and more on complex, client-facing issues — ultimately improving the end result.
“We hear stories like these every day,” said Macnamara. “Harvey is elevating the quality of the work we deliver to clients.”
Excitement spread across the firm.
“I’ve never seen this level of enthusiasm for legal technology,” said Brian Waldman, Managing Partner. “Having a tool like Harvey that is flexible enough to be applied to a wide variety of tasks and constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible is crucial.”
ArentFox Schiff’s journey shows what happens when curiosity meets the right platform. The firm believed in the potential of generative AI. Harvey and the ArentFox Schiff Innovation Team unlocked it through organic enthusiasm and real-world results.
Today, Harvey is part of their culture, empowering lawyers to think deeper and deliver sharper outcomes for clients.