Magic circle Freshfields to co-build legal AI with Anthropic
Magic circle law firm Freshfields has signed a multi-year agreement with AI giant Anthropic, giving the firm easy access to Anthropic’s latest AI models and collaborating to help design Anthropic’s next-generation offerings.
As part of the deal, Freshfields has rolled out Anthropic’s Claude models to its entire global workforce of 5,700 users across 33 offices, and within the first six weeks of implementation, it said it saw a 500 per cent increase in usage.
Freshfields will also co-develop legal-focused agentic workflows with Anthropic’s legal team.
The firm said it has “established a unique co-development programme” with Anthropic to build legal-focused AI applications and to design agentic workflows that enable faster, more efficient delivery of legal advice to clients.
Freshfields plans to expand to Cowork, Anthropic’s agentic AI platform, “in line with the firm’s security, compliance, and training frameworks.”
Gil Perez, chief innovation officer at Freshfields, said: “Partnering with Anthropic strengthens our ability to co-innovate at pace and to bring new capabilities into our work in a way that is secure, compliant and focused on client needs.”
“[Freshfields] decision to go wall-to-wall with Claude — across legal work, business services, and now agentic workflows — is the clearest signal yet that the enterprise AI moment in professional services has arrived,” Kate Jensen, head of Americas at Anthropic, added.
Anthropic’s Mythos model in the headlines
This partnership comes amid concerns over Anthropic’s latest model, Mythos, and its potential cybersecurity risks. UK ministers ramped up pressure on businesses to strengthen their cyber defences in response to growing concerns about Mythos.
Anthropic, headquartered in San Francisco, is also expanding its London footprint with a new office for up to 800 staff after engagement from UK chief executives had been “significant”.
Freshfields ‘wall-to-wall’ approach to AI comes as this week it was revealed that elite US law firm Sullivan & Cromwell had to apologise to a judge after its restructuring team filed a document in a high-profile case that contained multiple AI-generated ‘hallucinations’.