THE VERDICT
● General models for reading, summarising and drafting. They are genuinely good at this.
● Domain products when you need integration, an audit trail, and someone contractually accountable.
● What you are buying is rarely a better model. It is everything around it.
What the money is actually for
Harvey raised $550M this week. It is not training a better model than Anthropic or OpenAI — it is building on them. So the question worth asking is what $550M buys that a $20 subscription does not.
| What | General model | Domain product |
|---|
| Reading a contract | Good | Good, same underlying model |
| Your firm precedent bank | You paste it in | Integrated |
| Audit trail a regulator accepts | You build it | Included |
| Data residency and privilege | Vendor terms | Contracted for your sector |
| Someone accountable if it is wrong | Nobody | A contract and an insurer |
| Cost | $20 a month | Enterprise pricing |
THE LAST ROW IS THE PRODUCT
If a general model gets a clause wrong, that is your problem. If a domain product does, there is a contract, an insurer, and a party who carries the risk.
Regulated professions buy accountability, not capability. That is why the category exists despite the underlying model being the same one you can rent for $20.
Which one
| If you are... | Pick |
|---|
| A solo practitioner or small firm | General model. Build your own checking habits |
| Working under professional liability | Domain product. The accountability is the point |
| Handling privileged material | Whatever your terms permit. Read them before pasting |
| Evaluating a domain vendor | Ask which model it runs on and what the indemnity actually covers |
FAQ
Is Harvey better than Claude at legal work?
It largely runs on frontier models rather than replacing them. What differs is integration, audit trail and contractual accountability.
Can I just use a general model for legal work?
Many people do, and for reading and drafting it works. The gap appears where you need an audit trail or where someone must carry liability.
What should I ask a domain vendor?
Which model it runs on, what the indemnity covers, where data resides, and what the audit trail actually records.