Lawyers Build Custom AI Agents at Hogan Lovells Cadwalader

On October 16, 2026, one of the world's largest law firms turned its lawyers into agent builders. Hogan Lovells Cadwalader, the combined firm born from this summer's merger of Hogan Lovells and Cadwalader, unveiled a firmwide AI strategy on the same day its attorneys began deploying custom AI agents for Knowledge Management, Capital Markets, and International Arbitration work.

The move marks a milestone in the agentic era of legal work: rather than waiting for vendors to ship one-size-fits-all tools, lawyers at the firm are building their own agents on Harvey's legal AI platform, embedding them directly into everyday practice across the Corporate & Finance, Litigation & Arbitration, and Regulatory/IP groups.

Lawyers, not vendors, build the custom AI agents

According to Harvey's announcement, the firm has worked closely with Harvey's teams through practice-group office hours, tailored workshops, and individual sessions with senior lawyers to embed the platform into daily legal work. The lawyers have developed custom AI agents for Knowledge Management, Capital Markets, and International Arbitration, alongside collaborative playbook building.

According to Unite.AI, the adoption is intended to strengthen legal analysis and client counsel, with the custom AI agents designed to capture and apply the firm's institutional expertise across a variety of legal work. Miguel Zaldivar, the firm's CEO, said the approach has helped lawyers work more effectively and has strengthened the support and advice the firm provides to clients. John Haddock, Harvey's chief business officer, said the firm has a clear vision for how the platform can elevate lawyers' work and client service, and that Harvey is proud to build alongside a firm with that ambition and help shape what comes next.

The agent-building effort arrives as Harvey itself pushes deeper into agentic legal work. According to the Global Legal Post, Harvey recently launched Harvey II, a next-generation platform designed to accelerate personalized AI work for lawyers and move toward a greater focus on agentic legal tasks. The new platform brings together a Memory feature that carries individual lawyer preferences across Harvey, Word, Outlook, and agents, plus a "spaces" technique where documents, tasks, permissions, and matter history can be brought together in one place so that smarter agents can work with full context already in place.

A firmwide AI strategy with an AI Board

According to Legal IT Insider, the firm also unveiled a comprehensive firmwide AI strategy and a new AI governance structure on October 16, combining market-leading platforms, proprietary client solutions, and dedicated commercial capabilities. The firm has signed agreements with both Harvey and Legora, a dual-vendor signing that Legal IT Insider noted is unusual to see announced together.

According to the firm's strategy announcement, CEO Miguel Zaldivar said there is no single AI solution that will meet every need of a modern global law firm. The strategy pairs the best available commercial technology with innovations the firm builds itself — including proprietary tools and client-facing solutions developed through the firm's ELTEMATE joint venture — keeping the firm agile and differentiated.

Governance is a central pillar. The firm has created a new AI Board that will evaluate ideas developed across practice groups and sectors, decide whether solutions should be built internally or sourced externally, allocate resources, and oversee development and deployment. Paul Otto, a partner in the firm's Global Regulatory practice in Washington, D.C., will become Managing Partner for Legal Technology and AI, while Oliver Campbell, a former capital markets lawyer with 15 years of experience modernizing legal services, has been appointed Chief Transformation Officer.

The firm has also created a new Commercial Unit, led by Bill Ferreira as Managing Partner for Commercial Unit and Client Delivery, focused on pricing, legal project management, pitching, and client delivery. Reported by Law.com, Zaldivar predicted that the firm's pricing model will be overhauled to favor fixed or alternative fee arrangements by 2029 as AI transforms the economics of legal services.

What the custom AI agents wave signals

The Hogan Lovells Cadwalader announcement is part of a broader shift in professional services: AI agents are moving from vendor demos to practitioner-built tools. When lawyers build their own custom AI agents for specific practice areas, the agents inherit real workflow knowledge rather than generic prompt templates — and these custom AI agents stay inside the firm's governance and client-confidentiality boundaries.

That practitioner-built pattern behind these custom AI agents is exactly what the new AI Board is designed to scale: ideas surface from practice groups, get evaluated centrally, and either become internal builds or sourced products. With approximately 3,100 lawyers across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC and revenue of more than US$3.6 billion, according to the firm's merger announcement, the combined firm has the scale to invest in AI from a position of strength — and the custom AI agent program suggests it intends to put that scale — and a growing library of custom AI agents — directly in its lawyers' hands.