Comparison
Harvey AI vs Mi Assist Legal -- Which is right for your firm?
Harvey AI charges $50,000+/year enterprise contracts and runs on Cloud (proprietary, OpenAI-powered). Mi Assist Legal runs on your own hardware -- one flat fee, no recurring seats, no data leaving your office.
TL;DR
The five-row answer.
| Dimension | Mi Assist Legal | Harvey AI |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | On-premise, your hardware | Cloud (proprietary, OpenAI-powered) |
| Price model | One-time deployment fee | $50,000+/year enterprise contracts |
| Data location | Your office network, always | Harvey cloud infrastructure |
| Best for firm size | 5-30 attorneys | Am Law 100-200 firms, BigLaw |
| Offline capable | Yes -- fully offline | No -- internet required |
Deployment Model
Cloud vs on-premise. What it actually means.
Harvey AI is a cloud-based legal AI built on OpenAI's GPT-4 architecture, purpose-built for large law firms. It has been widely covered in legal technology press and is used by firms including A&O Shearman, Linklaters, and PwC Legal. Harvey's pricing is reported in the $50,000+ per year range for enterprise contracts, with custom enterprise negotiations for larger deployments.
Harvey's architecture means every query goes through Harvey's cloud infrastructure and ultimately through OpenAI's API. For firms doing M&A due diligence or handling high-value litigation, the question is whether that data transmission is consistent with client confidentiality obligations. Harvey publishes security documentation and enterprise data processing agreements, but the data leaves your physical control during processing.
Harvey also has a minimum contract size that makes it unrealistic for firms outside the Am Law 200 bracket. A 12-attorney personal injury firm in Florida is not Harvey's target customer, and Harvey's pricing reflects that. Mi Assist Legal was designed specifically for the 5-30 attorney market: sophisticated enough for serious legal work, priced for the firms that actually make up the majority of the legal industry.
Pricing at Scale
10-attorney firm. 5-year total cost.
Per-seat pricing compounds every year. Mi Assist Legal is a one-time deployment -- the math becomes obvious over time.
| Period | Mi Assist Legal | Harvey AI |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 (10 attorneys) | $6,000 setup | $50,000+ |
| Year 2 | $0 (no per-seat) | $50,000+ |
| Year 3 | $0 | $50,000+ |
| Year 4 | $0 | $50,000+ |
| Year 5 | $0 | $50,000+ |
| 5-Year Total | ~$6,000 | $250,000+ |
Harvey AI enterprise contract pricing reported at $50,000+/year in industry press and partner announcements. Actual pricing varies by firm size and scope. Mi Assist Legal is a one-time deployment with no recurring license fees.
Feature Comparison
Honest feature breakdown.
| Feature | Mi Assist Legal | Harvey AI |
|---|---|---|
| Target market | 5-30 attorney firms | Am Law 100-200, enterprise |
| Pricing model | One-time deployment fee | Annual enterprise contract |
| Data location | Your office, on-premise | Harvey cloud + OpenAI API |
| Setup timeline | 48 hours | Enterprise onboarding, weeks |
| Offline capable | Yes, fully | No, cloud-dependent |
| Source citations | Yes, with document + page | Yes |
| Minimum firm size | No minimum | Enterprise tier required |
| ABA 1.6 by architecture | Yes, no data leaves office | Vendor policy dependent |
Decision Guide
The honest answer.
Choose Harvey AI if:
- --Your firm is Am Law 100-200 with a dedicated legal technology budget and IT department.
- --You need advanced drafting, contract review, and due diligence automation beyond document search.
- --Enterprise integration with existing matter management and billing systems is required.
- --Your firm can absorb the cost and has a compliance team to evaluate cloud vendor agreements.
Choose Mi Assist Legal if:
- Your firm has 5-30 attorneys and enterprise AI pricing is simply not in the budget.
- Client confidentiality requires processing to stay on your network with no cloud dependency.
- You need fast deployment without months of enterprise sales cycles and IT procurement.
- Offline operation and no recurring per-attorney fees are requirements, not preferences.
FAQ
Common questions.
Can a small firm actually use Harvey AI?
Harvey AI targets large law firms with enterprise contracts typically reported at $50,000+/year. A 5-10 attorney boutique firm would need to contact Harvey directly, but Harvey's public positioning and partner announcements focus on Am Law firms and global practices. Mi Assist Legal was built from the ground up for the 5-30 attorney market.
Is Harvey AI built on ChatGPT?
Harvey is built on OpenAI's GPT-4 architecture with legal-specific fine-tuning and training. This means queries are processed through OpenAI's API infrastructure. Harvey has a data processing agreement with OpenAI that provides some protections, but data does flow through OpenAI infrastructure during processing. Mi Assist Legal uses open-weight models (Llama 3.2, Mistral) running entirely on your local hardware.
Does Mi Assist Legal do contract drafting like Harvey?
Mi Assist Legal is optimized for document search, case file retrieval, and answering questions from uploaded documents with source citations. Harvey includes contract drafting and generation features. If drafting automation is your primary need, that distinction matters. If your priority is searching case files and internal documents securely, Mi Assist Legal is purpose-built for that workflow.
What open-weight models does Mi Assist Legal use?
Mi Assist Legal runs Llama 3.2 and Mistral models via Ollama. These are open-weight models that run entirely on your local hardware with no external API calls. The models are updated as improved versions are released. Your IT team retains full control over the model version and can audit the inference process.
How does Mi Assist Legal handle large document sets?
Mi Assist Legal uses ChromaDB or Qdrant as the vector database for document storage and retrieval. The system is configured based on your document volume at deployment. Firms with 50,000-500,000 pages of case files are supported. For very large document libraries, we size the hardware and index configuration during the deployment consultation.
Next Step
See how Mi Assist Legal works for your firm.
15-minute call. Live demo on a real case file. We will walk through setup, pricing, and whether Mi Assist Legal fits your workflow.