Anthropic is expanding its push into legal AI with a key leadership hire, appointing Robert Mahari as the company’s first head of Claude for Legal.

Mahari will work alongside Mark Pike, who has led product efforts for Anthropic’s legal vertical. Together, they will help shape and expand the company’s legal AI offerings, Mahari noted in a post on LinkedIn.

In the social media post, Mahari outlined his priorities for the role: “I’m joining Anthropic to shape how Claude serves law firms, in-house teams, and legal tech companies, from product to GTM.” He added that “no one at Anthropic needed to be convinced” about the opportunity in legal AI.

Mahari also emphasized the importance of building products that address the legal profession’s unique requirements, writing that lawyers “deserve tools built with real care for privilege, confidentiality, and getting things right.” 

He said his role will include helping the legal community understand what’s possible with AI while learning from practitioners “so that we can continue to push the frontier of legal AI.”

Mahari brings a deep background in legal AI. He is a fellow at Stanford’s CodeX Center for Legal Informatics, earned a doctorate at MIT focused on legal AI, and is the founder of legal AI startup Akiva.

Anthropic joins rival OpenAI as one of the few frontier AI companies to appoint a dedicated executive to handle legal-specific products, underscoring how legal AI is emerging as a strategic battleground.

OpenAI recently hired Jason Boehmig, founder of Ironclad, to lead product for its legal vertical. Boehmig announced the move in June, marking the ChatGPT maker’s first major executive hire for its legal business. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft has expanded its legal AI features across Microsoft 365 and Copilot and has built legal-focused products. Rather than building a dedicated legal business, Google has focused on serving the legal market through Gemini, Google Cloud, and partnerships with legal software providers and enterprise customers.

Photo: PhotoGranary02/ Shutterstock