Editor’s Note: Anthropic just put Claude at the connecting node of the legal software stack, and any procurement officer, contract manager, eDiscovery director, privacy counsel, or IP partner running a vendor evaluation this quarter is doing so against a new market structure.
The May 12 release ships 20-plus Model Context Protocol connectors and 12 practice-area
Thomson Reuters v. Ross Heads to Third Circuit, Keeping AI Copyright Boundaries in Focus
One of the most closely watched AI-adjacent copyright disputes in legal tech is moving deeper into the appellate phase. Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence are now before the Third Circuit in Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH, et al v. Ross Intelligence Inc, a case that has become a bellwether for how courts may treat…
Celebrity Keynotes At Legal Tech Conferences: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
I recently attended another legal tech conference celebrity keynote that left the audience wondering “what does this have to do with me?” Here’s my post for Above the Law on why celebrity keynotes at legal tech conferences sometime miss the mark. And what conference organizers and, for that matter, the celebrity speakers should be focusing…
Agreed Order Motion Signals Tactical Reset in M.D.N.C. Injunction Fight
A newly filed joint motion in 1:25-cv-01112 in the Middle District of North Carolina suggests the parties are trying to convert an active emergency dispute into a negotiated procedural reset. View full case on Docket Alarm.
From the docket text, the filing asks the court to enter an agreed order that would, first, deny…
Inbox management for business: How to organize your team’s conversations (and 5 systems that help)
By Chris Rausch
Your team checks email in one tool, responds to texts from another, and monitors social DMs in a third. Each channel has its own queue, its own notification rules, and its own blind spots. When a customer reaches out in more than one place—which they often do—nobody has the complete picture, and the conversation starts…
Why governed AI starts at the engagement level
By Colin McKee
Professional services firms aren’t built like corporations. Ownership is distributed across partners who control client relationships, manage delivery, and carry personal liability for the work they sign. Practice lines operate with meaningful autonomy. In a global network, member firms are legally separate entities that happen to share a brand. That structure creates the economics of…
Why your AI investments aren’t making your firm more valuable — and what to do about it
By Colin McKee
Over the past two years, law firms have made substantial investments in AI tools — everything from drafting assistants to research accelerators to meeting summarizers. And by most measures, these tools work. Lawyers are faster, more responsive, and more productive on a task-by-task basis. But the problem is, it’s not really showing up at the…
Each Side Claims the Same Recent Ruling Supports Its Position in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Appeal
By Bob Ambrogi
The long-running copyright litigation between legal research giant Thomson Reuters and now-shuttered legal research startup ROSS Intelligence took another interesting turn this week, following the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ order that the parties file supplemental briefs addressing the impact of its recent ruling in American Society for Testing & Materials v. UpCodes, Inc.…
Clio, Once A Feisty Startup, Says It Has Now Surpassed $500M In Annual Recurring Revenue
By Bob Ambrogi
Amid all the hubbub yesterday around Claude for legal, Clio quietly slipped in a notable story of its own: that it has now surpassed $500 million in annual recurring revenue. Since few legal tech companies are public, it is hard to know where that puts Clio on the overall revenue landscape. But based on available…
Supreme Court Pauses Idaho Limits on Mifepristone Access
The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily preserved broader access to mifepristone, blocking a lower-court ruling that would have allowed Idaho to enforce restrictions affecting the abortion pill while the litigation moves forward. The order does not resolve the merits, but it keeps the status quo in place and signals that the justices remain deeply engaged…
FTC, DOJ Urge Tennessee to Rethink ABA Accreditation Requirement for Bar Entry
Federal antitrust enforcers are stepping into a debate that goes to the heart of how lawyers enter the profession. In comments to the Tennessee Supreme Court, staff at the Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division urged the court to reduce or eliminate its reliance on American Bar Association accreditation as a prerequisite for…
Anthropic Goes All-In on Legal, Releasing More Than 20 Connectors and 12 Practice-Area Plugins for Claude
By Bob Ambrogi
Anthropic today took its biggest step yet into the legal market, releasing more than 20 new MCP connectors linking Claude to the software that law firms and legal departments run on, along with 12 new plugins tailored to specific legal practice areas. Today’s announcement builds on the legal plugin Anthropic released in early February for…
Two Legal Research Providers Launch MCP Integrations with Claude: Thomson Reuters and Free Law Project Connect Their Data to AI
By Bob Ambrogi
Two legal research providers — one a global publicly traded corporation, the other a relatively scrappy nonprofit — are today both announcing integrations with Anthropic’s Claude that allow the AI assistant to tap directly into their legal databases. While the announcements from Thomson Reuters and Free Law Project’s CourtListener arrive on the same day and…
Justice Technology Association Named Access to Justice Partner in Anthropic’s Legal AI Launch
By Bob Ambrogi
The Justice Technology Association (JTA), a nonprofit trade group representing mission-driven companies focused on the access to justice crisis, announced today that it has joined Anthropic as a launch partner in what Anthropic is calling its first comprehensive legal vertical initiative. The announcement comes as part of a much-broader announcement by Anthropic of its push…
Seventh Circuit Nonprecedential Disposition Highlights Limits of Appellate Relief
The Seventh Circuit’s May 7, 2026 disposition in Nonprecedential Disposition (civil), No. 25-1488, is a reminder that even when an appeal does not produce a published opinion, it can still offer useful guidance for litigators on appellate standards, preservation, and the practical limits of review. Because the court designated the decision as nonprecedential, it…
Republic Partners adopts Intapp DealCloud to unify deal management and client relationships
By Colin McKee
Chicago-based investment bank standardizes M&A origination and execution on purpose-built platform
PALO ALTO, Calif. — May 12, 2026 — Intapp (NASDAQ: INTA), the governed AI platform for professional firms in highly regulated industries, announces that Republic Partners has adopted Intapp DealCloud to centralize deal origination and management firmwide. Republic Partners is a Chicago-based investment bank specializing in M&A advisory for middle-market companies. The firm focuses on the…