Legal services and the publishing industry are under a wave of uncertainty. With the recent release of Claude Cowork and its industry-specific plugins by AI giant Anthropic, professional markets such as law, sales, and finance—previously dominated by vertical software providers—are facing unprecedented disruption.

The trigger for this panic was the Cowork plugin feature launched by Anthropic on January 30th. This feature allows users to integrate Claude into local folders and perform "deep customization" for specific industries. For example, the legal-specific plugin can directly assist teams in reviewing contracts, flagging compliance risks, and tracking legal clauses. This strong industry penetration capability has led investors to question whether the moats of traditional legal tech companies remain solid.

As a result, stock prices in the legal technology and publishing sectors have suffered significant losses this week. Well-known legal service platforms like LegalZoom, industry giants Thomson Reuters, and RELX Group, which owns LexisNexis, all saw sharp declines. Thomson Reuters' stock fell as much as 16%, while Dutch professional services company Wolters Kluwer also recorded a 10% drop. Market sentiment indicates that investors are worried that general-purpose large model vendors could quickly erode the space of vertical SaaS industries through "pluginization."

Beyond concerns about business competition, seasoned professionals in the legal field are more concerned about the impact on talent structures. Experts point out that although AI agents can significantly reduce the cost for senior lawyers to handle mundane tasks, this also means that positions for junior lawyers and new graduates may disappear. If routine tasks previously handled by junior assistants can be taken over by AI, law firms will find it difficult to offer entry-level positions for newcomers, which could reshape the career paths of future white-collar workers.