Maples Group advances AI Strategy with global rollout of Harvey AI partnership

(L-R) Peter Stapleton, Ireland managing partner, Maples Group and Suril Patel, VP of partnerships, Harvey AI in discussion at The Maples Investment Funds Forum.

Maples and Calder, the Maples Group’s law firm, is expanding its collaboration with Harvey AI (“Harvey”), the OpenAI-backed legal AI platform, to enhance its award-winning legal and professional services for the benefit of clients. The international law firm has long been at the forefront of innovation in law and regulation and this latest step follows a rich tradition of bringing additional value and services to the market.

Following a carefully managed pilot of generative AI among a sandboxed group of senior lawyers and professionals, the firm is now deploying Harvey to over 140 global Partners and a select group of senior professionals to explore how the technology can deliver even better outcomes for clients, while enhancing the work experience for its people.

The Maples Group recently held its annual flagship event, ‘The Maples Investment Funds Forum’, attended by over 350 international lawyers and investment professionals. A key theme of this year’s Forum was generative AI and included a fireside chat with Suril Patel, VP of Partnerships at Harvey AI, who presented an update on the latest developments in AI and a demonstration of how the Group is exploring the use of AI.

Harvey, a secure generative AI platform for sophisticated professional services, has earned the trust of leading international law firms, in-house teams, professional service providers and private equity firms. The company brings together engineers from the best AI research labs and lawyers from the most prestigious firms in the world to develop cutting-edge, specialised models that enable secure generative AI workflows and research for lawyers.  Harvey is designed to support the firm’s lawyers and professionals in a wide range of their daily projects and work tasks. The technology enables teams to take a creative and ambitious approach to enhance legal service delivery, both in respect of existing workflows and in the delivery of new capabilities which will benefit our clients and deepen the value we bring.

Ireland managing partner Peter Stapleton, who sponsors the Maples AI project, said, “The Maples Group has always valued and invested in innovation, advising at the cutting-edge of today’s laws and regulations to help our clients to be at the forefront of what they do. We have increasingly harnessed technology to deliver superior services to our clients and we invest heavily in LegalTech and RegTech solutions. Having been one of the first firms to start working with Harvey in late 2022, I’m excited that we are now taking our AI journey to the next level. And I look forward to many more conversations with our clients and partners in the industry as we work together to unlock the potential of this technology.”

Global managing partner Jonathan Green adds, “Generative AI will transform how we deliver legal services, but it will never replace our lawyers. The most effective work that we do in the future will combine the best of both people and technology. And in fact, our people’s legal expertise, business acumen, and client trust will matter more, not less. “

Harvey co-founder Winston Weinberg adds: “We are proud to partner with the Maples Group, who share our vision of using generative AI to enable lawyers to take legal services to the next level. They have been a key collaborator in assessing and developing our platform, and we look forward to working with them to discover new opportunities and outcomes for their clients and lawyers.”

Notably, a core team of the firm’s lawyers and technologists have been working with Harvey since late 2022 while it was still in beta. The firm established a carefully structured and sandboxed pilot, following a thorough risk review, limited to using only internal data and documentation, and with all output supervised by senior staff. The firm is now rolling Harvey alongside a global training programme, having developed an understanding of where the technology can be most helpful for clients and implemented safeguards to ensure quality and security.