OpenAI Launches Astra for Law With US Legal Search Index and Firm Controls
OpenAI on Thursday introduced Astra for Law. The product is aimed at law firms and legal-technology companies that build AI tools for professional work. It pairs GPT-6 Astra with a legal search index, specialised instructions, and research and writing tools. Privacy controls and 26 partner plugins complete the package.
The company calls GPT-6 Astra its most powerful model so far. Astra for Law is that model configured for legal tasks, not a separate base model. Selected firms get it first through a Trusted Access programme in ChatGPT and Codex. An API version, named gpt-6-astra-law, is planned later.
The search index is the centrepiece. Users can query US case law, statutes, regulations, court rules, and administrative decisions. OpenAI says the corpus covers more than 230 million URLs, with sources added daily. A partnership with the Free Law Project brings CourtListener case law into the same research flow. That collection, OpenAI says, includes more than 99.9 percent of published US precedential opinions.
The system is meant to find authorities, pull the relevant passages, and apply them to a legal question. On questions from Vals AI’s Legal Research Bench, OpenAI reports a 54 percent pass rate on the overall correctness check. GPT-6 Astra using only web search scored 38.7 percent on the same test. Both runs used the highest reasoning setting. The legal configuration also found 24 percent more reference cases on case-law questions. On an audited set of target passages, it retrieved up to 54 percent more relevant excerpts from the correct opinions. Independent comparisons with incumbent legal-research platforms were not published with the launch.
Custom instructions cover analysis and drafting. OpenAI says the model can apply research to a client’s facts, shape arguments or deal terms, flag weaknesses, and mark uncertainty. One example is separating a court’s holding from other remarks, then spotting cases that could undercut an argument.
Confidential work gets extra controls. Eligible firms in the Trusted Access Program can use Zero Data Retention on the API. ChatGPT Enterprise usage is excluded from human review by default, the company says.
Twenty-six partner plugins connect the chat to tools lawyers already use. An iManage plugin can save a draft negotiation brief to a matter file. Intapp can flag activity that may need a time entry. Thomson Reuters is bringing HighQ matter context into ChatGPT and previewing a CoCounsel Legal connector.
Availability remains limited at launch. Broader API access and a fuller plugin list are expected to follow. Firms will still need their own review of citations, privilege, and ethical walls before relying on any generated memo.
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