Choosing the Right Partner: Why Burges Salmon Chose Harvey

Key Highlights

• Structured pilot across multiple practice groups to evaluate legal AI platforms
• Digital champions drove lawyer-led adoption during the evaluation
• Harvey selected as part of Burges Salmon’s Digital Enablement Programme
• Lawyers now analyze complex document sets faster while delivering deeper insight to clients

About Burges Salmon

Burges Salmon is an independent UK law firm with more than 1,300 people across offices in Bristol, London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. The firm advises major corporates, public sector organizations, and high-growth businesses on complex legal matters where commercial judgment and trusted relationships matter most.

Innovation plays a central role in the firm’s strategy. In 2025, Burges Salmon was named UK Law Firm of the Year, reflecting its continued investment in its people, its clients, and the future of legal services.

As generative AI began reshaping professional services, the firm launched a careful evaluation to understand how the technology could enhance legal work while maintaining the trust and governance standards clients expect.

Opportunity

For Burges Salmon’s leadership team, generative AI represented a major inflection point for the profession.

“Over the course of my career we’ve seen computers, the internet, and mobile phones transform the way lawyers work,” says Managing Partner Roger Bull. “But generative AI is different.”

The potential was clear: the ability to analyze vast volumes of information, accelerate early-stage analysis, and remove repetitive tasks from legal workflows.

But adopting generative AI required a disciplined approach.

“This is not simply a technology deployment,” says Emma Dowden, Chief Operating Officer. “It’s a transformation in how people work — hearts, minds, and behaviours. We needed to make sure we adopted the right technology in the right way.”

For Dowden, responsible implementation was critical.

A law firm’s reputation depends on how it protects client data, governs new technology, and ensures lawyers use it responsibly. Any AI platform would need to meet those standards — and prove its value in real legal work.

Solution

Burges Salmon ran a structured pilot to evaluate leading legal AI platforms across real legal workflows.

The firm tested multiple providers across practice areas, gathering feedback from lawyers and measuring how the tools performed in day-to-day work.

“It was critical that we chose the right partner,” Dowden says. “Partner is a key word.”

Four factors ultimately set Harvey apart.

Built for Legal Work

Burges Salmon had already deployed Microsoft Copilot firmwide as part of its Digital Enablement Programme.

But the firm needed a platform designed specifically for legal workflows.

“Harvey immediately resonated because it’s focused on the work lawyers actually do,” says Eddie Twemlow, Head of Technology.

Lawyers quickly began using Harvey to analyze large document sets, structure research, and generate clearer starting points for drafting — helping them begin matters with more organized analysis from the outset.

Lawyers Validated Harvey

Practicing lawyers played a central role in the evaluation.

One of them was Tom Whittaker, Director and Head of AI Advisory, who works on complex investigations involving large volumes of data.

“Many of our matters involve huge datasets — transcripts, evidence, and supporting documents,” Whittaker explains. “Harvey allows us to interrogate that data quickly and extract insights in ways that simply weren’t feasible before.”

For Whittaker, the benefits extend beyond speed.

“Better quality insight, greater accuracy, and greater consistency all improve the outcomes we deliver to clients.”

Adoption Proved the Decision

The firm also prioritized adoption during the pilot.

Burges Salmon activated a network of digital champions across the firm, allowing lawyers to demonstrate the tool to their peers.

“It’s when lawyers show other lawyers how useful the tool is that engagement really takes off,” Twemlow explains.

Eventually, the pilot reached a clear turning point.

“We knew we were ready to make a decision when lawyers moved from saying ‘this is interesting’ to saying ‘this is how I work every day.’”

A Strategic Long-Term Partner

The final decision came down to more than features.

“There were similar products available,” Twemlow says. “But the question for us was where we’ll be in three years’ time — and which vendor will be on that journey with us.”

For Dowden, that long-term partnership mattered just as much as the technology itself.

“Introducing AI into a law firm requires trust — in the platform, in the governance around it, and in the partner supporting it.”

Harvey’s legal focus, roadmap, and hands-on partnership during the evaluation ultimately gave Burges Salmon confidence in its choice.

Impact

Burges Salmon selected Harvey as part of its broader Digital Enablement Programme and has since rolled the platform out across the firm.

Lawyers are already applying Harvey to document-heavy workflows, including investigations, research, and complex analysis.

The technology enables teams to interrogate large datasets faster while delivering more consistent and insightful analysis.

“It provides superpowers effectively,” says Bull. “In terms of speed, volume, and depth of analysis, it allows lawyers to do things they simply couldn’t do before.”

For Dowden, the decision ultimately comes back to trust.

“Trust is at the centre of our culture. Any AI platform we deploy must align with how we protect client data, support our people, and deliver the highest-quality legal services.”

By leveraging Harvey’s legal-specific capabilities, Burges Salmon is building an AI-enabled legal practice designed for the future.

And in a rapidly evolving legal market, choosing the right partner made all the difference.