Harvey, the artificial intelligence startup valued at $5 billion, is making a strategic push into legal education by offering its AI-powered platform to law schools across the United States. The company, which already works with half of the country’s 100 largest law firms, has been rapidly expanding its academic footprint since August 2024.
The initiative began with six law schools joining Harvey’s alliance program in August, followed by 11 more institutions in September. Most recently, Duke Law and Northwestern Pritzker Law have joined the roster, according to company announcements. All participating law schools receive access to Harvey’s platform free of charge, a strategic move designed to build brand loyalty among future legal professionals.
Winston Weinberg, Harvey’s cofounder and CEO, envisions a future where AI becomes integral to legal education. He describes potential use cases including mock leveraged buyouts in private equity classes and students using Harvey’s tools to draft and refine arguments before moot court competitions. While these specific simulations aren’t yet live, they represent the company’s vision for transforming legal pedagogy.
Harvey’s strategy mirrors the successful “Wexis” playbook employed by LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters for decades. These legal research giants provided law schools with free or heavily discounted access, ensuring students became fluent in their systems and carried that preference into professional practice. Harvey is betting that prompting and directing virtual AI agents will become the next essential skill set for lawyers.
Within law firms, Weinberg claims Harvey is eliminating drudgery from legal work, with clients beginning to expect faster turnaround times—comparable to how email revolutionized response expectations. This efficiency creates a paradox in the legal industry, where many lawyers are paid by the billable hour, meaning time savings can translate to revenue losses.
Weinberg predicts Harvey’s efficiency gains will push firms toward flat-fee pricing models to protect profits, or alternatively, firms may pass along the cost of AI tools directly to clients as line items on invoices, similar to existing practices with research databases like LexisNexis and Westlaw. The company is currently exploring this billing model.
Notably absent from Harvey’s partner list are prestigious institutions like Yale and Harvard, despite company lore suggesting the name “Harvey” partly references Harvard. Law schools remain divided on generative AI policies, with some prohibiting it entirely, others allowing it with disclosure, and a few actively integrating it into clinics and practice labs.
Key Quotes
What we’re trying to do is make it so they can start integrating that into their training as early as possible
Winston Weinberg, Harvey’s cofounder and CEO, explained the company’s strategy for embedding AI tools in legal education. This statement reveals Harvey’s long-term play to create habitual users among law students who will carry these skills into their professional careers.
The biggest change it made is that you’ve got to respond way faster
Weinberg compared Harvey’s impact on legal work to the advent of email, suggesting that AI is fundamentally changing client expectations around turnaround times. This observation highlights how AI adoption may be driven not just by efficiency gains but by shifting market demands.
I think where things actually break down is that there is almost no hands-on stuff in the second and third year
Weinberg, a USC Gould School of Law graduate, critiqued current legal education for lacking practical training in later years. This perspective positions Harvey as not just a technology provider but as a solution to perceived gaps in legal pedagogy, strengthening its value proposition to law schools.
Our Take
Harvey’s law school strategy is remarkably shrewd, recognizing that institutional adoption in education creates lasting market advantages. However, the company faces a significant challenge: law schools remain deeply divided on generative AI, with prestigious institutions like Yale and Harvard notably absent from the partnership roster. This suggests resistance from elite institutions that may view AI as threatening core legal reasoning skills.
The billable hour paradox Weinberg identifies is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of this story. AI that makes lawyers more efficient directly threatens the traditional revenue model of legal services. Whether firms embrace flat fees or pass AI costs to clients will determine if Harvey becomes a profit enhancer or merely a competitive necessity that compresses margins. The company’s $5 billion valuation suggests investors believe the former, but the legal industry’s conservatism shouldn’t be underestimated. Harvey’s success may ultimately depend less on its technology and more on its ability to help firms navigate this business model transformation.
Why This Matters
Harvey’s expansion into legal education represents a pivotal moment in AI adoption within the traditionally conservative legal profession. By targeting law students early, Harvey is positioning itself to become the default AI tool for an entire generation of lawyers, potentially creating a decades-long competitive moat similar to what LexisNexis and Westlaw achieved with legal research.
This development highlights a broader trend of AI companies pursuing institutional adoption strategies rather than relying solely on individual users. The move also underscores the growing acceptance of AI in professional services, particularly in fields like law that have historically been slow to embrace technological disruption.
The initiative raises important questions about legal education’s future and whether traditional pedagogy adequately prepares students for AI-augmented practice. As Harvey becomes embedded in law school curricula, it could fundamentally reshape what skills are considered essential for lawyers, potentially devaluing certain traditional competencies while elevating AI literacy.
For the legal industry, Harvey’s efficiency gains present a fundamental business model challenge: how to maintain profitability when AI dramatically reduces the time required for legal work in a billable-hour system. The resolution of this tension—whether through flat fees, AI cost pass-throughs, or other models—will likely define the economics of legal services for years to come.
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Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/harvey-ai-law-schools-big-law-2025-10