[DigitalToday, intern reporter Seung-a Yoo] OpenAI has launched Astra for Law, an artificial intelligence product tailored for legal work. It combines the latest model, GPT-6 Astra, with legal search and legal analysis and drafting guidance, targeting large U.S. law firms and legal technology companies.

On Sept. 17 (local time), OpenAI and foreign media said Astra for Law is not a new standalone model but a product configured for legal work using GPT-6 Astra. It combines a legal search index that can search U.S. case law, laws, regulations, court rules and administrative decisions with guidance specialised for legal analysis and drafting. The search index includes more than 230 million URLs, with new materials added daily. For case-law data it uses the CourtListener database of the nonprofit Free Law Project.

Its legal research performance also appeared higher than that of GPT-6 Astra. OpenAI evaluated 200 U.S. legal research questions on an unpublished validation set of Vals AI’s Legal Research Bench, and Astra for Law scored 54 percent on overall accuracy. GPT-6 Astra using web search only scored 38.7 percent. Both models were rated at the highest reasoning level. On case-law questions, Astra for Law found 24 percent more reference cases, and in a separate audit evaluation it found up to 54 percent more target phrases in correct judgments. Its answers are also about twice as long on average as GPT-6 Astra’s.

Initial access is limited. Selected law firms, centred on the AmLaw 200, can use it in ChatGPT and Codex through the Trusted Access programme, and it is shown as 'GPT-6 Astra Law' on the model selection screen. An API version, 'gpt-6-astra-law', will be provided later, but the specific release date and pricing were not disclosed. Legal AI companies Harvey and Légora were also named as API customers.

It also strengthened security and governance features. Eligible law firms receive a policy in which data is not stored in the API, and ChatGPT Enterprise usage is excluded by default from human review by OpenAI employees. OpenAI is designing a governance framework with law firm Latham & Watkins, including information access rights, ethical walls and client guidance.

It also expanded the ecosystem of plugins for legal work. With the launch, 26 partner plugins are provided, allowing legal tools such as Relativity, Clio, iManage and DeepJudge to connect with ChatGPT. Thomson Reuters will link HighQ matter-related information to ChatGPT and plans to introduce a connector for CoCounsel Legal. Nine community plugins built by lawyers and legal engineers and 47 custom functions are also provided. ChatGPT for Word also officially launched the same day and can be used for document proofreading, revision suggestions and checking formatting errors.

Joel Hron (조엘 혼), chief technology officer at Thomson Reuters, stressed that connecting AI and legal tools alone is not enough. He said trusted information, enterprise and matter context, functions specialised for legal work and governance required for high-risk work are needed.

OpenAI is also developing tools tailored to each firm’s knowledge and work style by assigning engineers to individual law firms. U.S. law firm Sullivan & Cromwell built a contract analysis tool that uses its own negotiation guidelines and curated case law to review new deals and propose revisions. Ropes & Gray uses it for transaction due diligence, and Cooley developed 'Go Public' for preparing and drafting filings for initial public offerings.

OpenAI’s entry into the legal market also coincides with moves by rival Anthropic. Anthropic unveiled a legal-focused product in May, and the two companies are expanding links between legal tools and external services. OpenAI has previously rolled out products targeting specific industries, including financial services, education, clinical and life sciences research.

OpenAI defined this launch as the start of a long-term investment in the legal field. GPT-6 Astra itself was expanded into a legal-work configuration about two weeks after its release on Sept. 3.