Claude for lawyers
Practical legal research and drafting workflows with Claude.
Learn how to use Claude, Claude Cowork, and Claude Code for case law, court dockets, federal and state statutes, legal drafting, PDFs, Word documents, citation checking, and safer source-grounded legal work.
Open source
Free legal research plugins for Claude
Ground Claude in public legal sources instead of relying on model memory. DocketDrafter's plugins work in Claude Cowork and Claude Code and are available from our public GitHub marketplace.
CourtListener
Search judicial opinions and RECAP dockets, download public court materials, and maintain a reusable local research library.
Case law, federal dockets, and RECAP documents
Federal Court Rules
Search federal procedural and evidence rules plus selected district local and ECF rules from eight states.
FRCP, FRAP, FRE, and selected local and ECF rules
U.S. Code
Search, read, quote, and compare federal statutes from a bundled local corpus without relying on web search.
Local, source-grounded federal statutory research
New York Laws
Research New York statutes, the Constitution, CPLR, selected court rules, and the NYC Administrative Code.
New York statutes, CPLR, 22 NYCRR, and NYC law
Florida Laws
Search Florida Statutes, the Florida Constitution, and statewide Florida court rules from a bundled local corpus.
Florida statutes, Constitution, and statewide court rules
Install from the DocketDrafter marketplace
/plugin marketplace add DocketDrafter/docketdrafter-plugins
/plugin install courtlistener@docketdrafter
/plugin install federal-court-rules@docketdrafter
/plugin install us-code@docketdrafter
/plugin install ny-laws@docketdrafter
/plugin install fl-laws@docketdrafterWatch the plugins in action
Follow the complete setup and research workflows in Claude Cowork.
Search CourtListener with Claude Cowork
Install the free CourtListener plugin and research opinions, dockets, and public court documents.
Research the U.S. Code without web search
Install the bundled U.S. Code plugin and ground Claude's analysis in local statutory text.
How lawyers can use Claude
Claude can help with more than generating prose. The strongest workflows give it a defined task, controlled files, and sources an attorney can inspect.
Legal research
Find primary authorities, read the underlying text, and connect conclusions to verifiable sources.
Legal drafting
Develop arguments and language while preserving attorney judgment, templates, and review controls.
Document review
Work through PDFs, Word documents, exhibits, and matter files without losing the question being answered.
Start here
Guides to Claude for legal work
Can Lawyers Use Claude? Ethics, Confidentiality, and Client Data
A primary-source analysis of Claude Pro and Team under the ABA rules, including confidentiality, training, consent, supervision, and billing.
Read the guideClaude for Lawyers: Web, Cowork, and Code Explained
A practical guide for lawyers deciding which Claude product to use for legal work.
Read the guideClaude for Lawyers: Tokens and Context Windows Explained
Why long chats and large Word documents can make Claude worse—and how lawyers can manage context deliberately.
Read the guideA safer Claude legal research workflow
Claude can accelerate research, but it does not replace source review or professional judgment.
- 1
Start with a defined legal question and the relevant jurisdiction.
- 2
Locate primary authorities instead of asking Claude to answer from memory.
- 3
Make Claude read the underlying opinion, statute, rule, or record.
- 4
Require source citations for every material legal conclusion.
- 5
Verify quotations, currency, treatment, and procedural posture yourself.
- 6
Apply the authorities to client facts only after reviewing the sources.
Claude drafts. DocketDrafter controls the document.
Our free plugins help ground legal research in sources. DocketDrafter provides the controlled firm workspace around drafting: templates, formatting rules, approved prior work, citation review, version history, and reliable Word output.
Build firm-owned AI playbooks that help Claude produce work consistent with your practice while attorneys retain control over review, adoption, and filing.
Build my firm playbook