Harvey's CEO explains his early tactic to get customers: telling lawyers how bad their arguments were

""I would try to come up with prompts that were like, 'This is bad,'" Weinberg said."

""Because they're a litigator and I'm basically attacking something that they just wrote, they would instantly read the screen," he added."

""But the times that they got it right, it was over," Weinberg said, referring to moments when the analysis landed and won the lawyer's attention."

""I'd been practicing law for like eight months," Weinberg said of the period when he started the company. "I didn't have any connections.""

Winston Weinberg used demos that directly critiqued lawyers' own public court filings to grab attention within seconds of a call. He prompted Harvey to flag flaws using blunt prompts like 'This is bad.' Early tool versions could hallucinate, making risky early demos that might end conversations if outputs were wrong. Successful, accurate critiques immediately secured lawyer interest. Weinberg performed extensive LinkedIn cold outreach, messaging thousands of lawyers to book early calls. He had practiced law only about eight months when he started the company and lacked professional connections. Harvey reached an $8 billion valuation after a December funding round led by A16z. The legal AI sector is expanding rapidly.

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