Accelerating Litigation Excellence: How Lightfoot Uses Harvey to Turn Insight Into Advantage

About Lightfoot, Franklin & White

Lightfoot, Franklin & White (Lightfoot) is a nationally recognized litigation boutique known for its uncompromising trial acumen and deep commitment to service — to clients, to communities, and to one another. Founded in 1990, the firm handles high-stakes litigation, internal and government investigations, compliance matters, and complex disputes across industries.

Guided by its hallmark “Lightfoot Way,” the firm values excellence, flexibility, and problem-solving above all. Lightfoot lawyers, widely respected for their courtroom skill and strategic judgment, are entrusted with some of the most challenging matters across the country.

Opportunity

Lightfoot’s lawyers face constant pressure to deliver rapid, precise analysis in matters where timing and judgment can shape the entire trajectory of a case. Yet manual drafting, document review, research, and deposition analysis consumed hours that lawyers needed for deeper strategy, argument development, and client engagement.

“Our lawyers were spending too much time on process and not enough on insight,” said Corey Thomas, Chief Technology Officer. “We needed to accelerate the foundational work so our teams could focus on strategy, judgment, and high-level advocacy.”

The firm evaluated several AI tools and quickly ruled them out. They lacked legal grounding, raised confidentiality concerns, and did not handle the nuance that complex litigation demands. Harvey stood apart with its domain specificity, secure architecture, and ability to integrate directly into the firm’s existing workflows.

Solution

Lightfoot’s Innovation Committee led a coordinated rollout of Harvey, bringing lawyers, IT, and leadership together to drive responsible, high-impact adoption. Harvey delivered value immediately, and lawyers rapidly incorporated it into their drafting, review, and transcript workflows. Thomas called this, "the most successful software I ever rolled out."

To reinforce adoption, Lightfoot launched Innovation Wins, an initiative that highlights real use cases and practical tips across the firm. This initiative strengthened a culture where lawyers actively refine and expand how they use Harvey to enhance their practice.

Lawyers now rely on Harvey to accelerate several core litigation tasks:

• First Drafts of Briefs, Memos, and Correspondence: “This lets our lawyers spend less time on repetitive drafting and more time on what clients pay us for: critical thought, strategy development, advocacy, and delivering results,” Thomas said.
• Rapid Summarization and Document Review: Harvey distills large sets of documents, flags key issues, and extracts relevant facts within minutes, giving litigators earlier, cleaner insight into what matters most.
• Deposition Review and Preparation: During a recent matter, the team faced four upcoming depositions and needed clear, person-specific summaries drawn from thousands of pages of records. Traditionally, attorneys would spend hours sorting through nearly 1,000 pages of unorganized material to piece together the relevant details. Harvey handled the entire process in about ten minutes, including the time it took to craft the prompt. The output arrived structured, accurate, and ready for attorney review, allowing the team to shift immediately to strategy rather than spend half a day on document triage.

Lightfoot estimates that lawyers reclaim an average of up to ten hours each week from drafting, summarization, and transcript review. Lawyers reinvest that time into case strategy, client engagement, and trial preparation. “Harvey empowers our lawyers to concentrate on what sets us apart,” said Thomas. “It shifts time from formulaic tasks to the dynamic, case-specific work that leads to better outcomes.”

Lightfoot requires lawyers to review all AI-generated outputs before using or delivering them. This safeguard preserves quality and reinforces client trust. With integrations across Word, Lexis, and iManage — plus custom workflows for research and review — lawyers access Harvey directly within the tools they rely on every day.

Impact

Harvey now acts as a strategic accelerant across Lightfoot, enabling lawyers to think deeper, move faster, and deliver greater value on every matter.

The platform also expands the firm’s capacity. Lawyers orient themselves more quickly, ramp up on complex issues earlier, and contribute meaningfully at every stage of a case. This increased leverage allows the firm to take on more high-value matters and respond faster to client needs.

Clients feel the impact directly. At a recent client roundtable:

• Clients endorsed Lightfoot’s disciplined, quality-first approach to AI.
• Several indicated a firm’s AI capability now influences their outside counsel selection.
• Lightfoot’s responsible use of Harvey strengthened confidence and helped the firm win new work.

For Lightfoot, Harvey anchors the next era of litigation practice. “Generative AI will transform legal work by automating routine tasks and surfacing insights,” Thomas said. “With Harvey, our lawyers can focus on the strategic thinking and deep analysis that define the Lightfoot Way.”