AI Is Not Waiting for You. Catch Up in 20 Minutes.
A plain-English guide for lawyers who last tried AI in 2023
The version of AI you last tried doesn’t seem to be the version your colleagues and competitors are talking about today. A few years ago, you asked it a question and got a confident hallucination. That was fair grounds for skepticism. But the tools have advanced, and the gap between lawyers who use them and lawyers who don’t is widening fast.
This post covers six steps. No technical background required. Set aside twenty minutes and you will have a working AI legal assistant on your computer by the time you’re done.
Troubleshooting, if you need it, is also remarkably easy. Just screenshot any step that give you trouble and feed it to the AI on the side with a pinch of context.
Step 1: Download the Claude Desktop App
Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Unlike the web-based tools you may have used years ago, it now runs as a proper desktop application on both Mac and Windows.
1. Go to claude.com/download.
2. Click the download button for your operating system (Mac or Windows).
3. Open the installer and follow the prompts. It takes about two minutes.
4. Sign in or create a free account when the app opens.
Step 2: Upgrade to Access Cowork
Cowork is the part of Claude that can work directly with files on your computer, run multi-step tasks, and use specialized tools like Claude Legal. It’s available on paid plans. (Pro at $20/month is sufficient to start.)
5. Inside the Claude app, click your account icon (i.e., your name) and choose “Upgrade Plan”.
6. Select “Pro plan” and complete checkout.
7. Once subscribed, look for the “Cowork” tab in the top of the app and click it. For the remaining steps, you will work in the Cowork tab window of the Claude app.
Step 3: Install the Claude Legal Plugin
Plugins are add-ons that give Cowork specialized capabilities. Claude Legal is Anthropic’s official plugin for contract review and legal workflow automation. Installing it takes thirty seconds.
8. Click the “+” button at the bottom of the screen
(or go to claude.com/plugins/legal and follow the steps there).9. Select “Add Plugin” from the menu that appears.
10. Find “Legal” in the list and click it to install. That’s all there is to install.
Step 4: Upload a Commercial Agreement
Cowork works directly with files on your computer. You do not need to copy and paste anything.
11. Click “Work in a Folder” or “Choose a different folder”, and create or select a folder on your computer where you want versions of your contract and any related files to live.
12. Click the “+” button at the bottom of the screen, choose “Add files or photos”, and find a commercial agreement in the folder you set up.
(Or drag and drop the same file into the chat textbox.)
(Or type “What files do you see?” and ask Claude to look at a file by name.)
If you want to start with someone else’s work, here’s the U.S. SEC’s library of contracts.
Step 5: Ask for a Contract Review
Once your document is uploaded, ask for a review.
13. Click the “+” button at the bottom of the screen, choose “Plugins”, then “Legal”, and click “contract-review”.
14. Hit the “Let’s go” button! Answer any preliminary questions.
Claude will work through the document clause by clause and return a structured summary with risk flags. For a standard commercial agreement, this typically takes under a minute.
Step 6: Read. Get the Redline & Cover Email
Your judgement comes in here. You need to review that nice report.
15. Once you’ve read the review, ask for a tailored redlined version of the agreement based on the suggestions by Claude that you want to implement, and anything you want to add.
16. With the tailored redline version in hand, ask Claude to draft a client email explaining the changes to the client.
That’s it.
The tools have genuinely improved. The review, redlining, and cover letter you just ran would have taken a mid-level associate hours and would have required you to check their work anyway.
Note that the terms of service can be found at anthropic.com/legal/consumer-terms. If you want to use Claude Legal for client work, have an associate in your firm vet the TOS to your satisfaction.