How a German Specialty Firm That Advises on AI now Runs on it

Key Highlights

• A specialist regulatory, environmental, and AI law firm with 27 professionals across Berlin and Düsseldorf uses Harvey to amplify counsel delivery — the very technology they advise companies about.
• Custom Vault workflows power regulatory proceedings and client-specific work product, enabling junior lawyers to spend hours on substantive legal analysis instead of mechanical tasks.
• Weekly team exchanges fostered collegial adoption, with even initially hesitant lawyers discovering ways to use Harvey to deepen their client work.

About pswp

pswp — POSSER SPIETH WOLFERS & PARTNERS — is a 27-person regulatory and environmental law firm founded in May 2018 as a spinoff from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s public law practice. Based in Berlin and Düsseldorf, the firm advises on regulatory law, environmental law, AI and data legislation, energy, infrastructure, and financial services. Dr. Frederic Geber, a partner specializing in both regulatory law and AI/data compliance, leads client advisory on the very technologies the firm now deploys internally.

Opportunity

pswp’s differentiation rests on bespoke work — tailored legal structures, tone, and presentation for each client and matter. That craft demands both speed and precision. Regulatory proceedings especially call for rapid and thorough document synthesis, argument refinement, and client-specific formatting without sacrificing analytical rigor.

The firm sought a tool that could accelerate routine document handling while preserving the human judgment defining their advisory. As Dr. Geber notes, “Delivering exceptional work products to our clients is the foundation of our reputation. Harvey complements these qualities, serving as a powerful tool that amplifies our capabilities.”

Solution

pswp underwent extensive Harvey testing before partner-led rollout. The firm built custom Vault workflows tailored to regulatory proceedings and client-specific requirements. Integration with Harvey for Word and Outlook kept it close to existing tools; knowledge sources became invaluable for argument development. As Geber explains, “We pressure-test our reasoning, explore counterarguments, and refine our positions before presenting them to clients or courts.”

Weekly team exchanges proved critical to adoption. Geber reflects, “The collegial atmosphere of these meetings encouraged even those who were initially hesitant to experiment with the tool.” Rather than impose top-down adoption, the firm created space for lawyers to discover where Harvey fit their practice.

Harvey’s impact on junior development was immediate. “Instead of spending hours on mechanical tasks, junior associates engage more substantively with the legal questions — participating in strategic discussions, drafting more thoughtful analyses, and receiving more detailed feedback from senior colleagues,” Geber says.

The moment arrived when a longstanding client faced a complex environmental planning proceeding requiring responses across multiple submission rounds. In those tense submission windows the firm delivered differently.

“We used Harvey to design a custom workflow agent that drew on our prior work product, combined with our deep familiarity with the matter. We delivered coherent, high-quality advice significantly faster than would otherwise have been possible,” Geber explains.

Impact

Partners now allocate reclaimed time to strategic client guidance. “For partners, the time reclaimed enables us to be more present for our clients — better understanding the broader context, further anticipating future challenges, and offering more proactive guidance,” Geber notes. Junior associates allocate hours to identifying key substantive issues and refining core arguments. “The additional time allows us to identify the key substantive issues with greater precision, refine our core arguments even further,” he explains.

Client RFPs now increasingly ask: What AI tools does your firm use? How do you ensure data security? For a firm whose reputation hinges on bespoke excellence and regulatory acumen, Harvey isn’t just a tool — it’s proof that technology guided by genuine legal expertise amplifies rather than replaces that expertise. The firm that advises companies on AI governance now proves daily, in high-stakes regulatory moments, that generative AI in skilled hands does what it should: it frees minds to think deeper.