Claude As a "Competitor with Great Potential in the Legal Market": The industry agrees—the German legal tech market cannot afford to stand still / Anthropic could become a formidable competitor.

“FRANKFURT. A steady stream of news regarding "Claude for Legal" is stirring up interest among lawyers, AI developers, and the founders of legal tech companies—digital service providers for law firms and corporate legal departments. Is the legal market—and with it the German legal tech scene, which has grown significantly over the past decade—facing a profound transformation?

 

Just a few days ago, Anthropic released twelve new add-ons for its AI chatbot, Claude. These enable law firms, legal departments, and even legal laypeople to answer questions ranging from corporate law, compliance, and intellectual property rights to complex regulatory matters.

 

 As early as late April, Anthropic announced a strategic partnership with Freshfields; other major international law firms could follow suit. The list of twenty connectors includes established providers such as Thomson Reuters and DocuSign, as well as Harvey—an AI tool already used by many major US law firms.

 

"This situation must be taken seriously," said Dennis Fordan, a lawyer and software developer, during a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Legal Tech Association Germany on Tuesday. "This is a new competitor with great potential for the market," emphasized the founder of iur.AI.

 

Anthropic released the package of twelve plug-ins and prominent connectors with the aim of becoming a "one-stop" platform provider for the legal industry.

 

Fordan noted that German law firms and legal tech entrepreneurs should not be intimidated by this development: "After all, there is nothing in there that wasn't already known or that couldn't be adopted by others." He encouraged the audience to view Claude’s entry into the legal market as an opportunity—for instance, by leveraging Anthropic as a new distribution channel for their own services.

 

However, Anisja Porschke, co-founder of Bucerius Law School’s "AI Legal Club," pointed out that German lawyers must comply with professional regulations (BRAO) when using "Claude for Legal." A supplementary agreement pursuant to Section 43e BRAO is required for the use of client-specific data. "Currently, this cannot be concluded directly with Anthropic," Porschke said. However, this should not deter anyone from seeing for themselves what is currently possible with Claude.

 

"Anonymize data, explore it gradually—but for productive work on sensitive client matters, you have to take a somewhat roundabout route," Porschke emphasized.

 

There were many reactions following the launch of the new Claude add-on programs last week (F.A.Z., May 13). Winston Weinberg, co-founder and CEO of the AI ​​provider Harvey, wrote in a LinkedIn post that Anthropic’s move merely confirmed what his company had long believed: "The legal sector is one of the most compelling use cases for AI transformation." At the same time, he noted, it is one of the most complex areas, difficult to capture with general-purpose models. "We are committed to collaborating with Anthropic and the broader legal and AI community to advance this field," Weinberg said.

 

Alongside Anthropic, Thomson Reuters announced an expansion of its partnership with the AI ​​provider and confirmed the integration of its application, CoCounsel Legal, into Claude. Upon the release of the latest quarterly figures, Steve Hasker, head of the information and media group, confidently highlighted Thomson Reuters' competitive advantage over providers of generative AI. He argued that the latter could not match the "trusted AI" suitable for use in environments with strict regulatory and professional standards. The fact that Thomson Reuters—despite deep technical integration—continues to deliberately maintain some distance from Anthropic illustrates just how complex the relationship is regarding Claude as a multi-channel platform. In February, Max Junestrand, head of the AI ​​startup Legora, described the AI ​​chatbot as a "lawyer in your pocket." At the time, he wrote on LinkedIn that there was a significant difference between a plug-in and the operation of a collaborative, case-oriented platform at a production level—one used by hundreds of the world’s leading legal departments. While Junestrand praised Anthropic’s progress, he maintained that "a language model alone" could not replace a platform.” [1]

 

1. Claude als "Wettbewerber mit viel Potential im Rechtsmarkt": Die Branche ist sich einig: Stillstand kann sich der deutsche Legal-Tech-Markt nicht leisten / Anthropic kann starker Konkurrent werden. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 20 May 2026: 19.  MARCUS JUNG