Big Law partners once viewed artificial intelligence as a distant curiosity. Now two startups command their attention. Harvey and Legora have raced to valuations of $11 billion and more than $5 billion respectively. They sell tools that promise to rewrite how corporate lawyers research cases, draft contracts and advise clients. The speed of their rise has forced law firm leaders to confront an uncomfortable question. What happens when the machines handle work that once kept armies of associates busy for billable hours? Harvey emerged from Silicon Valley in 2022. Founders Winston Weinberg and Gabe Pereyra built it as a domain-specific system trained on legal data. It handles research, document analysis and complex workflows. More than 100,000 lawyers across 1,300 organizations now use it, according to the company. In March 2026 it raised $200 million at an $11 billion valuation, bringing total funding above $1 billion.…