How Harvey scaled legal document workflows 50 percent MoM without rebuilding infrastructure
Table of contents
“As we grew, the document load grew even faster. Nutrient kept up every step of the way.”
Use case
Harvey set out to deliver fast, compliant, lawyer-grade document workflows designed to scale with the company’s rapid, AI-driven growth.
Challenges
- Relied on a patchwork of open source PDF rendering libraries and iframe-based approaches that worked in early stages, but weren’t designed for Harvey’s accelerating enterprise demands.
- Needed a way to deliver the advanced, real-time frontend document experiences lawyers expect — like live highlighting and responsive UIs — at production scale.
- Faced increasing complexity in meeting the compliance, security, and deployment requirements of large law firms and global legal organizations.
Solutions
- Replaced fragmented open source tooling by implementing Nutrient’s client-side Web SDK and the server-backed Document Engine, enabling Harvey to scale document processing without adding significant internal infrastructure.
- Solved frontend performance limitations by embedding Nutrient’s high-fidelity rendering and dynamic document interaction capabilities directly into Harvey’s legal workflows.
- Met enterprise compliance standards with a secure, self-hosted deployment trusted by global law firms.
Results
- Harvey scaled effortlessly to support approximately 50 percent month-over-month growth in document processing without rebuilding its document stack.
- Delivers responsive, lawyer-grade frontend experiences like real-time highlighting and dynamic document interactions at enterprise scale.
- Earns enterprise trust with compliant, secure document workflows that meet the demands of global law firms and enterprise companies.
Harvey(opens in a new tab) serves more than 700 customers and 74,000 users in more than 58 countries, enhancing high-stakes legal workflows with AI. Early on, Bhavesh Kakadiya — Harvey’s head of product engineering — saw a potential bottleneck forming: document scale, user experience (UX) performance, and compliance readiness were all going to reach breaking points if the company continued to grow at its current pace.
Kakadiya had worked with PSPDFKit, now Nutrient, at a previous company, and he knew exactly when to bring Nutrient in. “Once we hit scale, we brought out the hammer,” he said.
“We were scaling document volume by nearly 50 percent every month — Nutrient handled it without us adding resources.”
Why early infrastructure couldn’t keep up
As Harvey accelerated its growth, the company’s early document pipeline of an open source, iframe-based stack began to show real strain. At the same time, Harvey’s usage curve was pointing sharply upward, and the company needed a system that could scale predictably and automatically without turning into a DevOps tax.
Compliance introduced a second pressure point. Harvey’s customers include some of the largest law firms in the world, each with strict requirements around data security, auditability, and deployment flexibility. Open source or in-house tooling couldn’t support that level of scrutiny, leading Harvey to seek a vendor that could check the enterprise boxes.
And finally, Harvey’s product vision demanded a far more sophisticated frontend experience than open source tools could support. Real-time highlighting, precision rendering, and the kind of visual accuracy lawyers expect all required technologies that open source libraries couldn’t handle at scale.
All three pressures — scaling demand, enterprise compliance, and advanced user interface (UI) expectations — forced Harvey to rethink its document foundation.
“We needed something we could take straight into enterprise security reviews. Nutrient made that simple.”
Rebuilding for scale, speed, and compliance
Kakadiya had worked with Nutrient before, so when Harvey reached a stage where performance and scale were particularly crucial, he knew exactly who to call. Harvey wasn’t looking for a basic PDF tool — the company needed a foundation partner that could support explosive growth without slowing the product or the team down.
From the start, scalability was non-negotiable. As Harvey’s customer base expanded and document volume grew by roughly 50 percent month over month, Nutrient quietly absorbed that growth in the background, enabling Harvey to scale without building heavy internal infrastructure. Rather than battling document performance issues, the team focused on product innovation and customer experience. This became a blueprint for how fast-moving AI companies should think about document infrastructure: build once, scale silently.
On the frontend, Nutrient unlocked an experience that went far beyond basic PDF viewing. Harvey delivered dynamic, real-time, client-side interactions within documents — including highlighting, opacity changes, and smooth in-document updates that typically break down at scale. When reflecting on the frontend experience, Kakadiya recalled that “real-time highlighting isn’t supposed to look this smooth in a browser, but Nutrient somehow made it happen.” These weren’t generic UI enhancements; they were purpose-built for lawyers working directly inside dense legal documents, giving them speed and clarity that legacy tools simply couldn’t match.
“The frontend experience was on another level — the highlighting and dynamic interactions weren’t functionality I’d seen anywhere else.”
Just as critical was compliance. Harvey’s customers are major law firms and enterprise legal teams with strict security and infrastructure requirements. “Compliance isn’t optional,” said Kakadiya. Nutrient made it possible to offer compliant, self-hosted-friendly workflows that meet enterprise legal standards. This wasn’t just about checking feature boxes; it was about earning trust with firms that won’t even consider tools that aren’t built for their regulatory reality.
The result was a rare combination: extreme scale without operational drag, differentiated document experiences(opens in a new tab) lawyers can rely on, and enterprise-grade compliance that opened doors with the world’s top firms. Nutrient didn’t just support Harvey’s growth; it made that velocity possible.
“We were scaling document volume by nearly 50 percent every month. Nutrient handled it without us adding resources.”
What changes when the document layer just works
With Nutrient in place, Harvey no longer has to worry about whether the document layer can keep up with demand. The system absorbs rapid growth, up to 50 percent month over month, without increasing operational load. Engineers no longer spend cycles maintaining iframes or debugging open source quirks, and product teams can release features with confidence, knowing the underlying engine is stable, accurate, and compliant.
For end users, the impact is immediate. Lawyers get a cleaner, more responsive viewing experience with precise rendering and dynamic UI behaviors that make complex documents easier to navigate. And for Harvey’s biggest customers, large law firms and enterprises with strict compliance requirements, Document Engine provides real reassurance.
Scale
Harvey now scales near-exponential document growth — absorbing approximately 50 percent month-over-month increases without adding DevOps or infrastructure resources.
Efficiency
Harvey’s engineering team saves substantial development time, eliminating the maintenance burden of open source tooling and iframe-based viewers.
Confidence
Harvey delivers a premium legal-grade document experience, with pixel-accurate rendering and dynamic UI behaviors that weren’t possible before Nutrient.
Ready for the next stage of growth
Harvey’s growth demanded more than a document viewer — it required an enterprise-ready engine built for velocity, precision, and scale. With Nutrient, Harvey delivers a best-in-class experience for legal teams while effortlessly absorbing near-exponential growth without breaking a stride.
