Anthropic says its newest lawyer tools are 'like giving an engineer a legal degree'

"Anthropic on Tuesday released a spate of new legal tools for Claude Cowork, which will let law firms plug their go-to software into the AI tool and more easily automate large chunks of work. Anthropic's newest release can handle a larger range of legal work. If these tools take off, the tactic could serve as a playbook for Anthropic and OpenAI to use in other industries, such as finance and healthcare."

"In Cowork, Anthropic's tool for knowledge work, lawyers can now access corpora of case law text, manage contracts, and run complex research. It works with other tools commonly used in the legal industry, such as CourtListener, Definely, Thomson Reuters' Westlaw, Courtroom5, and Box. The OpenAI-backed legal startup Harvey also joined Cowork's connections list."

"Anthropic has bundled some of these partnerships together with pre-built AI skills. These tools can handle legal work in specialized topics like employment, privacy, and product law, as well as features meant to help a legal clinic or a law student. The February launch acted as a general legal aid."

"Pike said the difference between that release and this new one is "like buying something off the rack versus getting something custom-tailored and altered." "It turns out that simply giving these general-purpose models access to the same tools that lawyers use it's sort of like giving an engineer a legal degree," Mark Pike, Anthropic's associate general counsel, told Business Insider."

Anthropic released new legal tools for Claude Cowork that enable law firms to connect their existing legal software and automate large parts of legal work. The update supports a broader range of legal tasks than an earlier February launch, which had already drawn market attention and raised concerns about software disruption. The integrations cover multiple legal software categories, including access to case law corpora, contract management, and complex legal research. Connections include CourtListener, Definely, Thomson Reuters Westlaw, Courtroom5, Box, and the OpenAI-backed startup Harvey. Anthropic also bundled partnerships with pre-built AI skills for specialized areas such as employment, privacy, and product law, plus features for legal clinics and law students.

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