Ethical Walls in Harvey

Overview

Admins can connect Harvey to your firm’s ethical walls provider to enforce those walls in your workspace.

Once connected, Harvey will automatically update walls and users’ access to resources, mirroring your firm’s existing walls. This is designed to prevent your firm's users from viewing or sharing Harvey content with one another inside Harvey that’s associated with restricted matters.

This guide covers how ethical walls work in Harvey, along with setup instructions for admins. To connect a specific provider, see the setup guide for your walls provider under Supported Walls Providers.

Key Concepts

• Walls provider: The external system where your firm defines and manages its walls.
• Client matter (CM#): Walls are access-control lists based on matters, so they require client matters. To share walled content in Harvey, users must attach a client matter to the content.

How Ethical Walls Work in Harvey (for Users)

When a thread, vault, review table, or playbook has a client matter attached to it, Harvey enforces that matter’s wall policy every time the resource is shared. If your intended recipient is restricted from that matter, Harvey blocks the share and shows a message explaining why.

Spaces work differently, because a Space’s client matter controls who can open the Space and what it contains. Refer to Ethical Walls in Spaces below.

Depending on your Harvey workspace's ethical walls configuration, you may also be prompted to add a client matter number to a thread, vault or review table before you can share it.

Walls also apply when you ask Harvey to organize files in a vault. Files protected by an ethical wall are not moved or renamed by Harvey, even if the rest of the vault is reorganized. Refer to Organizing Files with Harvey for more details.

Ethical Walls in Spaces

A Space can be tagged to one client matter. When ethical walls are turned on in your workspace, the Space follows that matter’s wall. The below behavior only applies if walls are enabled.

Who can open the Space

• Only users cleared for the Space’s client matter can open it.
• For users who aren’t cleared, the space doesn’t appear on the Spaces page, in search, or in recents. A direct link shows a page saying they don’t have access to the Space.
• Harvey doesn’t tell restricted users that a wall blocked them.
• Users who aren’t cleared can’t be invited.
• If someone was already a member before the Space was tagged and are not cleared for the matter, they stay a member but can’t open the Space. If they’re later cleared for the matter, their access returns without a new invitation.

What can be added to the Space

• Vaults, threads, playbooks, and review tables must be tagged to the same client matter as the space. This applies whether you add them from the space or from the resource’s Share menu.
• Workflow Agents don’t have a client matter, so they can be added to any Space.

What’s hidden inside the Space

• By default, a Space with a client matter may contain resources tagged to other matters. The Space admin may optionally change that behavior to require all resources to match the Space resource, otherwise they will be hidden.
• Resources tagged to a different client matter are hidden from anyone in the Space who is walled from that client matter.
• Members who aren’t cleared for the matter are removed from the member list and member count.
• Hidden resources aren’t deleted. A resource reappears if walls are removed or the resource's client matter is later changed.

Set Up and Administration (Admins)

How To Set Up Ethical Walls

1. In Harvey, go to Command Center → Configurations → Matters & Walls.
2. Select Settings.
3. Under Ethical walls, you will see three sections:

   1. Walls provider: When you select Connect to walls provider, you’ll be prompted to select your firm’s ethical walls provider and connect it to Harvey.
   2. Enable ethical walls: This toggle turns on wall enforcement. If a walled client matter is attached to a resource in Harvey (Assistant thread, Vault, Review Table, Space, or Playbook), restricted users can’t see the resource or receive it on a share. In Spaces that are tagged to a walled client matter, only cleared users can open the Space, and resources from other matters are hidden. This toggle does not require client matters to be tagged to resources. It only enforces walls if the user chooses to tag a resource.
   3. Require ethical walls for sharing Threads, Vaults, and Review Tables: This toggle requires that users attach a client matter to a Thread, Vault, or Review Table before sharing it with another user. It doesn’t apply to Spaces or Workflow Agents. Spaces remain as optional for client matters, and Workflow Agents may not be assigned client matters by themselves.

Once connected and enabled, Harvey mirrors your firm's wall policies and enforces them during share actions across supported Harvey surfaces.

Supported Walls Providers

The list below will be updated on an ongoing basis as new walls providers are added. Stay up-to-date on supported walls providers and feature enhancements by following our Release Notes.

Syncing

Harvey imports your client matters from your walls provider and then mirrors changes to your walls' membership.

When your firm updates access, Harvey updates the corresponding access in your workspace. How quickly those changes take effect depends on your specific walls provider.

Audit Logs

Admins can review dedicated audit logs to monitor wall enforcement and sync activity across environments. The logs cover activity such as matter linking, matter access, and sync updates.

FAQs