It was only a year ago that the US based Fastcase was merged with a European legal information and technology company vLex. In what I have to assume is a move to compete with Casetext and Lexis + AI, Harvey would be positioning itself to take on the Generative AI strategies of Thomson Reuters and Lexis Nexis. Both companies have anchored their AI products in their proprietary “trusted” legal content which dramatically reduces the risk of “hallucinated” answers. For obvious reasons, hallucinations are intolerable specters haunting the growth of GAI in the practice of law.
A reader tipped me off to the rumor that Harvey is seeking $600 million so that it can purchase vLex. Fastcase was founded by former big law attorneys Ed Walters and Phil Rosenthal in 1999. vLex was founded by attorney Luis Faus.
Harvey was founded by former big law attorney Winston Weinberg, CEO, and Gabriel Pereyra, president, Harvey has a low media profile, The executives rarely give interviews, they didn’t exhibit at Legal Week tech conference in New York this year, their website is spectacularly understated. My colleague Bob Ambrogi has covered Harvey regularly on his website and earlier this month reported that the company was looking to acquire a legal research company.
Does this have a real potential for disruption of the Thomson Reuters/LexisNexis duopoly?
like most of my colleagues I have been watching the Lexis/Westlaw duopoly slug ii out for dominance in the legal market for decades. Both companies have expanded beyond legal research and offer host of collateral products for the business and practice of law. Since the launch of Generative AI the competition for GAI dominance has heated up. Both companies offer GAI based legal research as well as drafting, summarization and other practice of law skills. Thomson Reuters paid 650 million in 2023 to acquire Casetext which launched the first generative AI legal research and drafting tool CoCounsel in early 2023.
The X- Factor in the potential vLex/Harvey combination is that vLex not only offers a reliable source of US law, but it is the only legal research company with a Generative AI product that can search across multiple international jurisdictions. In addition, Vincent AI offers about a dozen drafting and analysis skills which I have covered in prior posts.They market themselves as having the largest “digital law library” in the market. Generative I plus global legal primary source content is a material differentiator in a competitive, global legal market.
No Comment So Far.
I have reached out to executives at vLex and Harvey for comment. vLex declined to comment. No word from Harvey so far. I will keep you posted.
