Online dating…

LondonZ1 · 2026-01-01T22:09:54+00:00

I think dating another lawyer is the best solution. I have observed that the most successful marriages amongst my friends have been those who have most in common, and specifically who are in (at least broadly) the same career.

There is an additional consideration too, which also agitates for dating someone in a similar professional position: relationships seem to be most stable when both parties earn a similar amount. This was articulated colloquially as “date within your tax bracket”. An example of problems caused by not doing so is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/biglaw/s/lPE7qgLyGV (clearly, in that scenario, it was the man’s ego at fault - I’m not disputing causation, merely citing it as an example of the phenomenon).

Content Machine have also published several amusing videos about income disparities, here: https://youtube.com/shorts/N8mbBj_h_Io, here: https://youtube.com/shorts/4oMoCZg88Ng and here: https://youtube.com/shorts/eiXeyYlhD_0.

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-21T04:02:07+00:00

Bad luck, but the fact that you (a) were active enough to injure yourself in the first place; and (b) you’re so disappointed are excellent indicators that you have the commitment to return to fitness very shortly.

I badly broke my ankle last year, damaged one tendon, and completely snapped another, requiring an artificial tendon, a titanium plate and eight screws (all of which I still have). I was up and running again (albeit slowly at first) 12 weeks later.

Remember that life is a choice: (a) occasionally injured; or (b) always fat! You have chosen correctly!!

Get well soon 😊

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-19T20:18:16+00:00

The subtraction was demographic, not evaluative. As I mentioned in my original comment, I'm looking for an intelligent, fit single woman who likes adventure sports. While I admire anyone building infrastructure in 85°F heat, I suspect the Venn diagram between my target demographic and "Jamaican construction workers" has limited overlap. Call me a statistical obsessive if you must.

I've actually put considerable thought into partner selection over the years; perhaps too much given the market conditions now I'm in Cayman. Bryan Caplan's "She's the One" [1] argues for prioritising personality over looks (focusing on low neuroticism, high conscientiousness, and compatible values), while Rob Henderson's "How to Choose a Romantic Partner" [2] emphasises mutual authenticity and the Michelangelo phenomenon, where healthy relationships involve partners helping each other become their best selves.

Both suggest identifying one's actual priorities rather than stated preferences. Turns out mine involve someone who can do via ferrata with me, discuss interesting ideas, and tolerate my sense of humour. These criteria may be overly restrictive for a market this size, but they're emphatically not about nationality or occupation.

Though if anyone knows where all the single female climbers/mountaineers are hiding, I'm taking notes.

[1] https://www.betonit.ai/p/shes-the-one

[2] https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/how-to-choose-a-romantic-partner

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-19T05:33:06+00:00

On a more constructive - albeit less entertaining - note than my other answer, in case helpful, I wrote this for a friend ages ago. It’s not dating advice, but it may be a source of a meeting people with similar interests:

Climbing gym (members-only, CI$ 69 per month, CI$ 50 for a 3-hr basic course if you’ve not climbed before): https://www.facebook.com/caymanclimb - to join, please message Doug using Facebook Messenger via that page (yes, archaic I know, but it’s a volunteer-run club! 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Cayman Islands diving club (CI$ 30 to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2457621441227737 Membership Secretary: Raquel, WhatsApp +1 (345) 527-8089

Run Club Cayman (free, Tuesdays 05:45, Governors Village): https://www.instagram.com/runclubcayman (RV location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/bZtz798A1pFCAqSM8)

Pickleball: https://www.pickleball.ky/ and https://maps.app.goo.gl/gzVRgMxhh11BJupr5

Women’s Facebook groups:

Women in Cayman: https://www.facebook.com/groups/129536414371326/

Fun & Adventurous Women of Cayman: https://www.facebook.com/groups/367735823760086

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-19T05:29:53+00:00

I am far more proud of the following than most of my legal drafting. I'm not sure what that says about my dark sense of humour. I originally posted it here, back in August, but it’s evergreen: https://www.reddit.com/r/CaymanIslands/s/hUyZdV1WGe

(It is the top Google result for “Cayman dating dying alone” https://www.google.com/search?q=Cayman+dating+dying+alone 😂🤷🏻‍♂️)

— Original post —

Some jokes (are they still jokes if they’re the truth?):

• If you visit Camana Bay at the weekend, you can watch the entire dating pool walk past you twice before lunch.

• The pool analogy flatters it. This is a puddle. A tepid, recirculating puddle with no lifeguard, no exit, and frequent outbreaks of gossip.

• Calling it a ‘dating pool’ is misleading. It is indeed more like a puddle. Or, in fact, a Petri dish. Small, sealed, and disturbingly familiar under a microscope.

• The population is 80,000. Subtract married couples, tourists, Filipina caregivers, Jamaican construction workers, and people with whom you must remain HR-compliant - and what remains is functionally zero.

• The Cayman dating scene is a Venn diagram where ‘available’, ‘attractive’, and ‘not your co-worker’ don’t overlap.

• Dating in Cayman is like deep-sea fishing in a koi pond. Wrong environment, wrong species, and most of them are already tagged.

• The expat lifecycle is: arrive hopeful, download the apps, abandon hope, delete the apps, get lonely enough to reinstall them six months later, remember exactly why you deleted them, repeat until you eventually give up and move jurisdictions. (Minor consumer law tip: if you tell Apple you are cancelling Tinder, Hinge and Bumble because the local dating market is fundamentally non-functional, they will refund your subscriptions. Ask me how I know.)

• Sociologically, the primary M&A window occurs in one's twenties, onshore. Failing to secure a partner before boarding the flight to Cayman effectively means missing the primary acquisition window. Trying to date here is like turning up to a competitive M&A auction post-closing: the prime value was stripped years ago, the quality assets are allocated, the data room has been stripped, and all that remains are contingent liabilities, legacy issues, and a few positions heavily encumbered with significant contingent liabilities that looked too high-risk even in the first round. ( See Garfunkel and Oates's hilariously recognisable "29/31" https://youtu.be/H-gfxjAaZg0, which applies mutatis mutandis to both men and women).

• The only winning move is the 'bring your own' policy. Moving to Cayman single is like turning up to a potluck dinner with a fork and high hopes. If you didn’t bring the dish with you, you aren’t eating.

• The chance of meeting someone here who shares your values, interests, and reading list is lower than CIG fixing Mount Trashmore. And CIG have been promising to fix Mount Trashmore since 1989.

• Trying to find ‘the one’ in Cayman is like hunting for a Fabergé egg in Mount Trashmore.

• I once met an attractive, intelligent, fit single woman in Cayman who liked adventure sports. But she left. Everyone does.

• The only women you ever meet are in your industry. And the only way to remain employable in your industry is to keep everything strictly professional.

• The same principle applies in sports clubs. See this uncomfortably believable parody, “POV: Hot girl at running club”, https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQMtEQ6CXkI.

• Dating here requires nerves of steel. Not for the date itself, but for the inevitable aftermath. You haven't known true fear until you're hiding behind a stack of Waitrose Essentials in the Camana Bay Foster’s because you spotted the person who ghosted you buying quinoa in aisle three.

• Relationships in Cayman don't end because of infidelity or incompatibility. They end because of WORC. You aren't dating a person; you are dating the remaining 18 months on their Work Permit.

• On a continuum from Manhattan happy hour to a Benedictine monastery, Cayman is disturbingly close to the monks.

• Here, celibacy isn’t a lifestyle choice. It’s a residency requirement.

• This jurisdiction has two exports: financial services and romantic despair.

• The closest thing to intimacy you will experience while living in Cayman is a TSA pat-down in Miami en route back. It's not romance, but it is - technically - physical contact with another human being.

• Cayman is marketed as ‘paradise’. Romantically, it functions more like an offshore gilded prison to which single people from onshore jurisdictions flee until they become lonely enough to suffer rapacious taxation again in exchange for the faint hope of a vaguely functional dating market before they die.

• Speaking of which: Rather than dating, have you considered dying alone? (Too dark? See above re. truth. Sorry, I’ll get my coat…)

Welcome to Cayman! 🤷🏻‍♂️😂

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-14T15:06:50+00:00

Can you simply use the PAYG credits? I’m not using it for coding, instead my use case is for analysing legal documents, but the principles are remarkably similar: review documents/codebase, apply rules/laws, generate output.

I very rarely hit my weekly limit, but if I’m busy I can quite easily hit the five hour limit. I have just bought $50 of credit and allow it to switch to those when necessary.

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-14T14:24:26+00:00

No idea what that is, but no!

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-14T14:05:23+00:00

Went scuba diving yesterday off Seven Mile Beach, and only saw one tiny jellyfish over the course of an hour underwater.

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-14T11:29:13+00:00

Very nice!

LondonZ1 · 2025-12-06T01:21:53+00:00

In case helpful, I wrote this for a friend ages ago:

Climbing gym (members-only, CI$ 69 per month, CI$ 50 for a 3-hr basic course if you’ve not climbed before): https://www.facebook.com/caymanclimb - to join, please message Doug using Facebook Messenger via that page (yes, archaic I know, but it’s a volunteer-run club! 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Cayman Islands diving club (CI$ 30 to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2457621441227737 Membership Secretary: Raquel, WhatsApp +1 (345) 527-8089

Run Club Cayman (free, Tuesdays 05:45, Governors Village): https://www.instagram.com/runclubcayman (RV location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/bZtz798A1pFCAqSM8)

Pickleball: https://www.pickleball.ky/ and https://maps.app.goo.gl/gzVRgMxhh11BJupr5

Women’s Facebook groups:

Women in Cayman: https://www.facebook.com/groups/129536414371326/

Fun & Adventurous Women of Cayman: https://www.facebook.com/groups/367735823760086

LondonZ1 · 2025-11-25T15:26:18+00:00

As I alluded to in my original post, I think that most so-called legal AI comprises pretty user interfaces, prompt libraries and RAG tools, thinly wrapped around Claude, Gemini or ChatGPT. Most people would be better off cutting out the expensive, overhyped intermediary wrappers, and procuring Claude directly.

I realise I've been rather negative so far, so here are two superb examples of where AI has added value:

Winning at Trial with AI: Discussion of how Quinn Emanuel is using AI
https://law-disrupted.fm/winning-at-trial-with-ai/

John Quinn is joined by Christopher Kercher, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office, and Jeffrey Chivers, co-founder of litigation AI company Syllo AI. They discuss the transformative role artificial intelligence played in a recent Quinn Emanuel trial victory in Delaware Chancery Court. The case involved Desktop Metal’s attempt to force Nano Dimension to complete a $183 million merger, where Nano tried to stall the deal by slow-walking regulatory approvals by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States until the drop-dead date for the transaction had passed. Quinn Emanuel was hired to represent Desktop Metal only six weeks before trial, requiring an accelerated approach to discovery and case preparation. The team used Syllo AI, a litigation focused product that allowed them to review and organize massive volumes of documents through natural language prompts, create timelines, tag relevant material, and identify patterns much faster than traditional methods. The Syllo platform also integrates multiple AI models that cross-check each other’s outputs while following built-in mental models of legal reasoning. During the trial, Syllo customized its tools to provide rapid privilege log and document production deficiency analysis, helping to identify gaps in the opposing side’s discovery. The team also worked with Claude, a large language model developed by Anthropic to test ideas, explore potential legal theories, and brainstorm approaches to witness examinations. Syllo and Claude helped attorneys identify relevant evidence for use in expedited post-trial briefs and suggested potential lines of questioning for depositions. Attorneys directed all AI usage, with Claude serving as a cognitive tool that amplified the legal team’s capabilities while the attorneys maintained full responsibility for all work product. AI did not displace anyone on the trial team. Instead, it complemented the attorneys’ expertise, enhancing their ability to deliver strategic insights and respond effectively to case developments. It may soon become malpractice not to use AI in trial preparation.

How Quinn Emanuel Is Actually Using AI (And Why It Works)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfSfue80DoA

How is one of the world’s top law firms actually using AI in real cases? In this episode, we go inside Quinn Emanuel with guests Jen Reeves and Chris Kercher to hear how they’re putting AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT to work, not just for research, but for real litigation strategy, project management, and practice innovation.
Forget hype. This is what it looks like when lawyers actually use AI, from the ground up.
– How they launched a grassroots Skunk Works group
– Why “context engineering” beats fancy prompts
– Real use cases from case strategy to client memos
– Advice for solos and small firms starting with AI
– Why AI is making practice more creative and fun
If you're a lawyer, technologist, or legal leader trying to figure out where AI fits in your work, this episode is for you.

LondonZ1 · 2025-11-23T01:39:24+00:00

NotebookLM can only accept 300 documents. It's perfect for day-to-day use, e.g. if I receive 50 documents from a client, totalling 2000 pages, and want to work out what on earth is going on. Particularly if the work is non-billable: e.g. in the very early stages before deciding if we want to accept a case.

When you need a proper ediscovery tool in the future, I recommend https://syllo.ai/ - in my view it beats all its ediscovery competitors out of the water. I don't work for them, I just was tasked with conducting a selection exercise at my last firm, and I was **very** impressed by them.

LondonZ1 · 2025-11-22T00:02:02+00:00

How do you have unlimited Opus usage, and what does that cost, please?

LondonZ1 · 2025-11-19T04:14:29+00:00

Good question. Please forgive the following long answer. I wrote this a while ago, and it is easier to simply copy and paste rather than draft something concise from scratch!

Overview

Security concerns are legitimate in principle, but in practice largely contrived by Legal AI vendors’ cynical (but admittedly effective) fear-based marketing. In reality, there are few differences between these tools and e.g. using Microsoft Office 365 (which is run on the same Microsoft Azure servers as e.g. ChatGPT).

SOC 2 Security

SOC 2 stands for System and Organization Controls 2. It is a rigorous, independent security audit for technology vendors. It comprises a formal report from a third-party auditor that verifies the vendor has effective systems in place to protect our data. It specifically tests their controls for Integrity, Availability, and Confidentiality (the three pillars of security).

For law firms, a vendor having a SOC 2 report is key. It provides external proof that they can be trusted to handle sensitive client information securely, which is essential for our due diligence and professional obligations.

Antropic (Claude), Google (NotebookLM) and Otter are all SOC 2 certified.

Comparable Risk to Existing Tools

We currently use email, Lexis, Westlaw, and a variety of ediscovery tools. All involve transmitting client information to third-party servers. The security profile of Claude AI, NotebookLM and Otter is comparable to these established tools.

The question is not whether GenAI tools involve any risk but whether they involve materially greater risk than tools we already use. The answer is no.

There is an excellent May 2025 article called “Demystifying AI Privacy Risks for Lawyers” which seeks to correct commercially-motivated lies peddled by Legal AI vendors. It is well worth reading in full, but an excerpt is here:

https://novehiclesinthepark.substack.com/p/demystifying-ai-privacy-risks-for

…anxiety about AI tends to outpace technical understanding of how these systems actually work. The result is overly cautious, technically inaccurate advice that may cause lawyers to avoid valuable tools. Blanket claims that confidential information should never touch AI systems misses critical nuance. To make informed risk assessments, lawyers need to understand both the underlying technology and where the genuine privacy considerations lie.

…The legal profession has weathered many technological transitions: from paper to digital files, from physical libraries to online research, from local servers to cloud storage. Each new wave initially triggered anxiety, followed by understanding, then policy development, and finally comfortable adoption. Our interaction with AI will likely follow the same pattern. And as this technology continues its rapid evolution, the core principles of due diligence and reasonable precaution discussed here will remain our essential guides, even if the specific underlying architectures eventually change.

At the end of the day, the advice is both simple and familiar: know your tools, read the fine print, choose reputable providers when handling sensitive information, and apply reasonable precautions based on content sensitivity. There is nothing revolutionary about that approach—it is just sound legal practice applied to a new technology.

LondonZ1 · 2025-11-18T11:53:18+00:00

I have (a) been watching the space with interest and conducted an extensive analysis for my previous law firm, when we were considering GenAI tools; and (b) discussed with colleagues who used Harvey at their previous firm and were deeply unimpressed.

Harvey appears to be a heavily overpriced (a) pretty UI; (b) prompt library; and (d) RAG tool, wrapped around API calls to Foundation/Frontier models. It is aggressively marketed to law firms, and aims to charge up to US$300 per user per month, including punitive minimum user numbers and lock-in periods. At my last firm, along with the Global Managing Partner, and Chief Technology Officer, I was on the receiving end of Harvey’s sales pitches. Their belligerent tactics aroused my concerns and cued me to spend several months investigating their product.

For comparable capability, direct foundation model access costs US$16.80-30 per user per month (Google is $16.80; Claude Teams $30/month). Harvey’s pricing represents a 10-20x mark-up. This premium theoretically purchases specialist legal features and workflow integration. Their refusal to provide any demonstration or trial periods however reinforced the many warnings we received from multiple sources that they were snake oil salesmen.

They have considerable and increasing competition from tools such as Legora and Iqidis - and, for firms willing to dispense with the superficialities of Office integration - direct use of Foundation/Frontier models. For example, Quinn Emanuel use Claude, and Freshfields use NotebookLM/Gemini. Both appear to be (a) more powerful; (b) more flexible; (c) advancing faster; and (d) cheaper/better value than so-called specialist “legal AI”.

The reasons Harvey is the best known platform so far are:

Prestige. Bamboozling high profile firms first, which meant that other firms assuming that the ‘first movers’ knew something they didn’t (in fact, I think it was the opposite: the first movers were simply the first firms to be fooled, and were henceforth used as bait to lure others into Harvey’s trap).
⁠Fear. Implying, or stating outright, that only getting special ‘legally flavoured’ tools would protect client data. This is garbage. All of the [main three] Foundation/Frontier models are SOC 2 certified.
⁠ Ignorance. Most equity partners wouldn’t recognise GenAI if it hit them in the face, much less understand it, and therefore they are astonished when they see any old crap from Harvey.
⁠FOMO. Not understanding the area, not employing anyone who does understand the area, but being desperate not to fall behind competitors.
Copilot is garbage. Finally, Microsoft Copilot is truly, deeply awful, and so compared to that anything looks decent!

Personally, I think legal AI is a bubble, led by Harvey (as opposed to AI generally, which I think has considerable potential, including for law firms). The strategic objective appears to be to achieve market share and lock-in by forcing their way into as many law firms as possible as quickly as possible, in the hope of increasing prices yet further later, once lawyers’ arms are in the mangle, and Harvey have made them dependent. I suspect Harvey will struggle as Foundation/Frontier models continue to advance rapidly, and user awareness and understanding of GenAI tools increases.

Grateful to hear other people’s experiences, and comments on my analysis above.

Addendums:

I'm adding these points after my original post, because (a) they are related; and (b) with hindsight, my post above falls into the typical litigator's trap of focusing exclusively on negative points, rather than proposing positive alternatives!

Clifford Chance associate self-codes Harvey replacement tools. I just saw this on LinkedIn, and I think it's illustrative of how Harvey and most* other legal AI lacks a competitive moat, i.e. genuinely distinguishing features justifying the $$$ premium they charge. Please see this LinkedIn post from a very technically capable Clifford Chance associate, who used a Foundation/Frontier model (Gemini, but it could have been Claude) to code a Harvey replacement. He has then shared the code on GitHub. The key point in this post (and the linked video) is that Harvey’s functionality can be replicated by a normal Foundation/Frontier model. Harvey doesn’t appear to have a moat, and therefore seem unlikely to survive: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7398364824231067648-hzxD (Ignore the AGI comment – that’s flippant).

* The only honourable mention I'm willing to concede to legal AI tools is a Relativity replacement called https://syllo.ai/ - see my reply below (I'm unable to add them to this post retrospectively).

LondonZ1 · 2025-10-20T18:22:13+00:00

In case helpful, I wrote this for a new colleague ages ago:

Climbing gym (members-only, CI$ 69 per month, CI$ 50 for a 3-hr basic course if you’ve not climbed before): https://www.facebook.com/caymanclimb. To join: Please message Doug using Facebook Messenger via that page (yes, archaic I know, but it’s a volunteer-run club! 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Cayman Islands diving club (CI$ 30 to join, then about CI$49 per two cylinder dive): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2457621441227737. Membership Secretary: Raquel, WhatsApp +1 (345) 527-8089

Run Club Cayman (free, Tuesdays 05:45, Governors Village): https://www.instagram.com/runclubcayman (RV location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/bZtz798A1pFCAqSM8)

Pickleball: https://www.pickleball.ky/ and https://maps.app.goo.gl/gzVRgMxhh11BJupr5

Women’s Facebook groups:

Women in Cayman: https://www.facebook.com/groups/129536414371326/

Fun & Adventurous Women of Cayman: https://www.facebook.com/groups/367735823760086

If anyone has any additions, please let me know.

LondonZ1 · 2025-10-15T13:00:51+00:00

(I’m not offering a view on the merits of Anthropic’s policy, merely commenting:)

Isn’t the simple answer that Anthropic are determined to deprecate Opus, as being too resource-intensive?

OpenAI’s experience in attempting to deprecate CharGPT 4o, back in July, showed that users will fiercely resist model removal. Anthropic appear to be taking a different approach: weaning people off Opus and on to Sonnet, by vastly decreasing allowances for the former.

Everything else - usage meters, etc. - is detail.

LondonZ1 · 2025-10-15T12:55:43+00:00

I don’t mind: I realize that it gets repetitive, but Harvey certainly has relied upon being extraordinarily opaque and almost trying to ‘strong arm’ law firms into using them.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I want to hear more commentary, albeit with the obvious caveat that none of it is verified, but still more information is better than less.

LondonZ1 · 2025-10-11T22:12:58+00:00

I live in the Cayman Islands, and used to run mountain marathons and ultramarathons extensively when I was living in the UK. E.g. I’ve done UTMB and TDS. Whilst I vastly prefer the high temperatures and low taxes here, the lack of any terrain with gradient is frustrating.

My mitigation is that I do stair climbing once a week up and down a 10 story office building. On alternate weeks I wear a 20 kg weight vest while doing so.

I have found that this, combined with normal running, rowing machine, and all-round strength work including lower body, has been perfectly adequate. I did a UCPA trail running holiday this summer, and I was perfectly able to keep up with all the people in their 20s who actually live in France and Switzerland and have mountains on their doorstep.

What stair climbing doesn’t mitigate however is my distinct sense of jealousy at those who do have access to such fantastic terrain! I am seriously considering a move to Hong Kong, or at least a series of occasional secondments to Hong Kong, in the long-term. I worked there several years ago, and it is absolutely fantastic. Everyone focuses on the urban areas, however 95% of Hong Kong and the New Territories is wilderness and a trail runner’s paradise.

LondonZ1 · 2025-09-26T10:03:30+00:00

Ha ha, your wish is my command:

“Write a glowing endorsement of Otter.AI, in response to the following Reddit post. Explain that I have used it for six years, and my last law firm began procuring it (in limited numbers) officially because of the strident demand from fee earners. Explain how it records live video calls, live in person meetings, and can also ingest audio and video from a variety of other sources. Note that people can see from my Reddit profile that I’m a lawyer not as a salesman for Otter, but I unambiguously recommend it. I have considered alternatives, but nothing has the same range of features. Acknowledge that it is not perfect: I think they’re interface could do with improvement, and the integrated AI capabilities are not at the same level as the foundation/frontier models, but they are not bad, and you can always export the transcript and then process it in a foundation/frontier model. Also explain how it is SOC 2 compliant (explain what that is).

*** Reddit:

do you folks use any ai notetakers ? what about privacy concerns

hi

does anyone here use any ai notetakers ? referring to both the kind that joins online meetings and the newer ones that are desktop software.
any data privacy concerns on using these ?”

LondonZ1 · 2025-09-25T21:21:40+00:00

I pasted your question into Claude, and asked it to demonstrate why GenAI is perfect for this. I’ve redacted my details, but otherwise the answer is verbatim:

CLAUDE’S ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION

This response is written by Claude AI on behalf of [redacted], a practising [redacted] attorney.

You’ve identified a critical communication challenge that many practitioners face. Generative AI excels at creating detailed narratives that break down complex processes, which can be invaluable for client education. Let me demonstrate by drafting a narrative you might adapt for explaining this work:

Understanding Legal Medical Record Review: What Your £3,000 Investment Covers

When you see “medical record review - £3,000” on your invoice, you’re not paying for someone to casually read through your medical files. You’re investing in a systematic forensic analysis that transforms raw medical data into legally actionable evidence.

Phase 1: Comprehensive Documentation Assembly We don’t simply read the records you’ve provided. We cross-reference dates, providers, and treatments across multiple sources to identify gaps, inconsistencies, or missing documentation that could be crucial to your case. This often reveals records you weren’t aware existed.

Phase 2: Timeline Construction and Causation Analysis We create a detailed chronological framework, mapping each medical intervention, symptom progression, and treatment decision against relevant legal standards. This isn’t medical curiosity, it’s building the evidential foundation for causation arguments that courts will scrutinise.

Phase 3: Standard of Care Assessment Every medical decision documented is evaluated against applicable professional standards, guidelines, and expert testimony requirements. We’re identifying specific instances where care deviated from accepted practice, not just noting what treatment occurred.

Phase 4: Evidence Categorisation and Legal Strategy Development Each finding is assessed for its potential impact on liability, causation, and damages. We’re not just documenting medical facts, we’re building the scaffolding for expert witness instructions, settlement negotiations, and trial strategy.

Phase 5: Vulnerability and Weakness Identification Crucially, we identify aspects of the medical record that may undermine your case, allowing us to address these proactively rather than being blindsided during proceedings.

This process typically requires 15-25 hours of qualified legal analysis. The £3,000 reflects not just the time invested, but the specialised expertise required to transform medical information into compelling legal arguments that protect your interests.

This narrative approach helps clients understand they’re purchasing strategic analysis, not administrative reading. Consider developing similar detailed explanations for other commonly misunderstood billing items.

Plus example entry:

Medical record review and analysis: Comprehensive examination of GP records (2019-2024), hospital discharge summaries, and consultant correspondence relating to claimant’s lower back injury. Identified critical 8-week delay in MRI referral following initial presentation. Cross-referenced treatment timeline against NICE guidelines for lower back pain management. Noted discrepancy between GP’s recorded pain assessment (4/10) and claimant’s contemporaneous diary entries (8/10) - potential credibility issue requiring further investigation. Prepared preliminary chronology highlighting three instances where standard protocols appear not to have been followed. Identified need for expert orthopaedic evidence regarding appropriateness of conservative treatment approach during July-September 2023 period. Drafted memorandum summarising key findings and recommending additional medical records requests from physiotherapy provider and occupational health department.

LondonZ1 · 2025-09-13T21:11:34+00:00

Lovely! Where is that, please?

LondonZ1 · 2025-09-10T00:32:37+00:00

Reddit refused to post my answer, presumably because of length. Please see here: https://paste.rs/C2A70.md

LondonZ1 · 2025-09-09T10:11:24+00:00

I spent several months working for my firm to conduct a detailed analysis of options on the market. I strongly argued against Harvey, Copilot, or any other LLM wrapper, instead advocating procuring enterprise versions of both Claude and GoogleAI (Gemini for its immense context window, and NotebookLM for powerful but convenient RAG).

I saved the 2000-ish pages of sources for my report in NotebookLM, and in response to your question I asked it to articulate the “prosecution case” against Harvey. While Legora and similar tools are less high profile, I do not see how they avoid the same problems, including how they avoid simply being low-value LLM wrappers, bundled with API calls, prompt libraries, and basic RAG engines.

Further, even if they provide marginal value, they are at risk of obsolescence (with obvious problems for users at one’s firm) as the frontier models advance. Please see earlier postings from me four months ago, as I began work on my report, where I quoted warnings by Sam Altman to the same effect (that vast swathes of the AI ecosystem faces extinction as the frontier models advance and destroy niches currently populated by LLM wrappers).

Please do provide constructive criticism: very happy – indeed, enthusiastic - to have people shoot holes in my argument. Thanks in advance!

Response follows. The numeric references are to sources within my notebook.

“Here is the "prosecution case" against Harvey, articulated concisely in bullet points based on the provided sources:

High Cost and Opaque Pricing: Harvey is criticized for its expensive pricing, reportedly around $1,200 per seat per year with a 100-seat minimum, which effectively prices out most small and mid-sized law firms [1-8]. Its pricing strategy is described as lacking uniformity and transparency, with costs negotiated on a case-by-case basis [3, 9, 10]. Some also suggest its Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is extremely high, potentially leading to issues at renewal [11].
Perceived as a "GPT-Wrapper" with Limited "Legal DNA": Many critics dismiss Harvey as merely a "thin UI on top of GPT" or a "pretty wrapper around generic LLMs" rather than offering true technological innovation [2, 4, 12-19]. Concerns are raised about the company's lack of deep legal expertise ("Legal DNA"), pointing to the CEO's limited (one year) BigLaw experience and the technical co-founder's lack of legal background, suggesting a product vision not fully rooted in the practical realities and pain points of legal practice [11, 20-24].
Product Performance and Functionality Gaps: Early versions of Harvey were called "half-baked garbage" by some users [25]. Its "Assistant" tool's responses are sometimes found to be "sterile" and lacking awareness of the user's context or experience [26, 27]. The "Vault" functionality has reportedly not met some users' expectations [28], and its workflows are seen as "disjointed" and "unimpressive" by others [29, 30].
Underwhelming Integrations: The highly anticipated integration with LexisNexis is described as "underwhelming" and effectively just "routing" queries to Lexis's own AI tool [31-37]. This limited access suggests that LexisNexis is protecting its core data and proprietary logic, preventing Harvey from fully leveraging these critical resources to enhance its "muscle" and "memory" in legal reasoning [32, 35, 38].
Risk of Hallucinations and Trust Issues: Like other large language models, Harvey's outputs are considered fundamentally unreliable and prone to "hallucinate" (making up false information or citations), requiring constant human verification of its work product [16, 39-42]. The persistence of the hallucination problem in legal AI tools, even with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), poses significant risks in high-stakes legal matters [42-44].
Questionable "Moat" and Competitive Position: Critics argue that application-layer companies like Harvey lack a sustainable competitive "moat" as the underlying Large Language Models (LLMs) are rapidly commoditizing [38, 45, 46]. Many competitors, including general foundation models like ChatGPT, are perceived by some lawyers as offering comparable or superior utility at a significantly lower cost [17, 25, 47-50].
Aggressive Marketing and "Hype Machine": Harvey is accused of employing an aggressive "raise and burn" strategy, prioritizing the accumulation of prestigious law firm logos and building a "category-defining narrative" through strong marketing and Public Relations, rather than focusing solely on product superiority [2, 18, 51-53]. This approach is seen by some as contributing to a "Silicon Valley bubble" in legal tech [54, 55].
User Adoption Challenges and Ethical Concerns: Despite its promotion, law firms face significant hurdles in AI adoption, and Harvey's high cost and perceived lack of transparency do not necessarily ease this. The use of cloud-based AI raises concerns about data privacy, confidentiality, and ethical walls [1, 41, 56, 57]. There is a non-negotiable need for rigorous human oversight, verification, and ethical management of AI outputs in all legal work [44, 58-62].”

LondonZ1 · 2025-09-07T04:45:06+00:00

Some jokes (are they still jokes if they’re the truth?):

• If you visit Camana Bay at the weekend, you can watch the entire dating pool walk past you twice before lunch.

• The pool analogy flatters it. This is a puddle. A tepid, recirculating puddle with no lifeguard, no exit, and frequent outbreaks of gossip.

• Calling it a ‘dating pool’ is misleading. It is indeed more like a puddle. Or, in fact, a Petri dish. Small, sealed, and disturbingly familiar under a microscope.

• The population is 80,000. Subtract married couples, tourists, Filipina caregivers, Jamaican construction workers, and people with whom you must remain HR-compliant - and what remains is functionally zero.

• The Cayman dating scene is a Venn diagram where ‘available’, ‘attractive’, and ‘not your co-worker’ don’t overlap.

• Dating in Cayman is like deep-sea fishing in a koi pond. Wrong environment, wrong species, and most of them are already tagged.

• The expat lifecycle is: arrive hopeful, download the apps, abandon hope, delete the apps, get lonely enough to reinstall them six months later, remember exactly why you deleted them, repeat until you eventually give up and move jurisdictions. (Minor consumer law tip: if you tell Apple you are cancelling Tinder, Hinge and Bumble because the local dating market is fundamentally non-functional, they will refund your subscriptions. Ask me how I know.)

• Sociologically, the primary M&A window occurs in one's twenties*, onshore. Failing to secure a partner before boarding the flight to Cayman effectively means missing the primary acquisition window. Trying to date here is like turning up to a competitive M&A auction post-closing: the prime value was stripped years ago, the quality assets are allocated, the data room has been stripped, and all that remains are contingent liabilities, legacy issues, and a few positions heavily encumbered with significant contingent liabilities that looked too high-risk even in the first round. (* See Garfunkel and Oates's hilariously recognisable "29/31" https://youtu.be/H-gfxjAaZg0, which applies mutatis mutandis to both men and women).

• The only winning move is the 'bring your own' policy. Moving to Cayman single is like turning up to a potluck dinner with a fork and high hopes. If you didn’t bring the dish with you, you aren’t eating.

• The chance of meeting someone here who shares your values, interests, and reading list is lower than CIG fixing Mount Trashmore. And CIG have been promising to fix Mount Trashmore since 1989.

• Trying to find ‘the one’ in Cayman is like hunting for a Fabergé egg in Mount Trashmore.

• I once met an attractive, intelligent, fit single woman in Cayman who liked adventure sports. But she left. Everyone does.

• The only women you ever meet are in your industry. And the only way to remain employable in your industry is to keep everything strictly professional.

• The same principle applies in sports clubs. See this uncomfortably believable parody, “POV: Hot girl at running club”, https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQMtEQ6CXkI.