[DigitalToday Seung-a Yoo] Anthropic has significantly expanded its artificial intelligence (AI) features for law firms.

On May 12 local time, IT outlet TechCrunch reported that Anthropic said it is adding new plugins and MCP connectors to its legal work support product, Claude for Legal, and will offer them to paying users.

The expansion focuses on automating repetitive office tasks at law firms. The AI is designed to support commonly occurring legal work, including document search and review, case-law research, deposition transcript preparation and drafting documents. Anthropic explained that the plugins can be used across areas such as commercial, privacy, corporate, employment, product and AI governance law.

Anthropic views the legal market as one of its key growth areas. A company spokesperson said the legal industry is under strong pressure to adopt AI, adding: "Law firms and in-house legal teams that moved first are quickly gaining a competitive edge." The spokesperson also said Claude is expanding deeper into knowledge work, and described the legal field as "one of the most important and fastest-growing industries."

As AI use increases in legal settings, concerns about side effects are also growing. There have been a series of cases in which lawyers were caught submitting legal documents containing errors generated by AI, and major law firms were not exceptions. California last year imposed sanctions for the first time on a lawyer who used ChatGPT to draft an appellate brief containing false citations. Some federal judges have also come under scrutiny by congressional leaders after it became known they used AI in drafting rulings.

Critics also say the burden across the court system is growing. They say AI-generated litigation filings are being submitted in large numbers with inaccurate claims and weak reasoning, putting pressure on trial proceedings.

Against this backdrop, Anthropic's feature expansion is viewed as showing that competition among enterprise AI companies is intensifying between demand for legal task automation and issues of accuracy and accountability, beyond a simple service addition.