RALEIGH, N.C. – Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP hosted a design summit on October 16 with legal AI company Harvey and Legal Aid of North Carolina to examine how law firms and AI developers can help frontline legal aid organizations put AI to work for the clients they serve. The summit is the first step in a national initiative the firm is developing with Harvey, and Nelson Mullins is also exploring opportunities to support other legal aid organizations, nonprofits, and law schools through this initiative.

In September, Harvey announced its Pro Bono Program with Nelson Mullins as a founding design partner. Since then, the firm’s Pro Bono and AI teams have been working together in Harvey to build workflows for the matters pro bono attorneys handle most often. The summit turned that work outward: the question was no longer how the firm uses AI in its own pro bono practice, but how what the firm builds and learns can become lasting capacity for the organizations that serve low-income clients every day.

"Our pro bono program has always been built around the needs of our clients and legal aid partners. What excites me about this initiative is its potential to multiply our impact,” said Elisa Kodish, pro bono partner at Nelson Mullins. “Every workflow or resource we build has the potential to help our attorneys serve more clients and, equally important, help our legal aid partners reach more people in their communities. That's a powerful way to expand access to justice."

The summit brought together Nelson Mullins attorneys; Harvey’s pro bono, innovation, and legal engineering teams; and practice leadership and Innovation Lab staff from Legal Aid of North Carolina, which established the nation’s first legal aid innovation lab in 2023. Participants mapped the high-volume civil legal needs where AI could expand capacity, including domestic violence, public benefits, and housing, and identified where tools and processes developed by the firm could be adapted for use by legal aid staff.

“The firms effectively deploying AI to scale their practices have an opportunity to make sure that underserved communities are benefiting from this powerful technology,” said Jeff Kelly, AI and Innovation Partner at Nelson Mullins. “By the Legal Services Corporation’s own estimate, legal aid organizations turn away roughly half the eligible people who come to them for help. The question we are working through with Harvey, Legal Aid of North Carolina, and other pro bono partners is what a firm like ours can contribute beyond hours: the build work, the process mapping, and the training that leaves legal aid with capacity it did not have before.”

Kelly is also the Chair of Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Board of Directors and assisted with the launch of its Innovation Lab.

Nelson Mullins attorneys participating in these new pro bono initiatives learn to build, test, and refine AI agents and workflows in Harvey, both for the firm’s own pro bono matters and to support the frontline work of legal aid organizations.

The initiative builds on Nelson Mullins’ longstanding commitment to pro bono service. The firm’s pro bono program marked its 35th anniversary in 2025, a year in which more than 80 percent of the firm’s attorneys participated in pro bono work, contributing nearly 60,000 hours and opening 600 new matters.

Established in 1897, Nelson Mullins is a full-service Am Law 100 firm of more than 1,000 attorneys, policy advisors, and professionals with offices across the United States. For more information, go to www.nelsonmullins.com.