AI-native law firm founder says Anthropic's Claude has made his three-lawyer practice compete with much larger firms by automating grunt work

Zack Shapiro, founder and managing partner of boutique AI-native law firm Rains, has described how his three-lawyer venture capital and M&A-focused firm operates with the output of a much larger practice by using Anthropic's Claude to automate document drafting and other routine legal tasks. Speaking to Business Insider, Shapiro said AI has made him "dramatically more efficient" and that he has "automated away basically all of the unpleasant or grunt work" that previously consumed his working day. Shapiro, a Yale Law School graduate, said he uses Claude's voice mode to dictate legal analysis while walking, generating first drafts by the time he returns to his desk. He described the approach as shifting lawyers toward judgment and client-facing work and away from document production. He framed this as the model's core competitive advantage: "The real humans are focused on the more human part of the job." Shapiro said he is sceptical of purpose-built legal AI products such as Harvey and Legora, arguing that the better path is for lawyers to learn to use general-purpose AI tools directly through precise prompting. He has begun consulting with large law firms on integrating the same workflow. His viral post titled "The Claude-Native Law Firm" attracted millions of views earlier this year, indicating substantial market interest in the model.