Microsoft gives Copilot a legal department with more than 20 skills

Microsoft launched Copilot for Legal on October 15, 2026. It is a version of the Copilot AI assistant aimed at lawyers. According to XIRA, it is available to Copilot customers worldwide.

The product includes more than 20 legal features, which Microsoft calls skills. In practice, these are ready-made tasks the AI can carry out. They include reviewing contracts, drafting documents and tracking obligations, meaning agreements on what the parties must deliver and when. The features are used in Word and in Cowork.

Partners supply legal expertise

Copilot for Legal also draws on outside partners. Bloomberg Law is named as a legal research partner, along with Trellis, Descrybe Legal Engine, Legal Data Hunter, Courtroom5 and Lawstronaut. Research partners give the AI access to legal material, so it does not rely solely on its own training.

According to XIRA, more than 25 legal technology vendors have begun rolling out partner plugins through Microsoft's registry. A plugin is an added module that connects a third-party service to Copilot. XIRA also says that Westlaw, CoCounsel and LexisNexis do not have direct integrations.

Fourth major player in five months

According to XIRA, Microsoft is the fourth major AI company in five months to bet on a dedicated legal product. Anthropic was first in May, followed by Google in August and OpenAI in September. This suggests that the major AI companies are increasingly competing to supply tools to lawyers and legal departments.

What we don't know

The description of the features is based on the companies' own statements and has not been independently tested. The sources also do not say what the product costs, or whether there are limitations in the connection to Bloomberg Law.

For ordinary employees at companies with Copilot, the development could eventually mean that routine tasks such as contract review can get AI help directly in the programs they already use.