OpenAI launches Astra for Law with legal search and firm workflows

OpenAI launched Astra for Law, a legal-work offering that combines GPT-6 Astra with a specialized search index, governance controls and firm-specific workflows. Selected U.S. law firms will get initial access through OpenAI’s Trusted Access program in ChatGPT and Codex.

The company presents Astra for Law as GPT-6 Astra configured with legal settings, tools and context for law firms and legal-technology providers. The launch extends GPT-6 Astra into another professional domain after OpenAI’s financial-services offering built on the same model.

Under OpenAI’s eligibility guidance, access is limited to lawyers and people working under their supervision. The offering appears in the model picker as GPT-6 Astra Law.

OpenAI said the legal search index spans U.S. case law, statutes, regulations, court rules and administrative decisions across more than 230 million URLs, with sources added daily. It also said the research experience incorporates CourtListener. The Free Law Project, which operates CourtListener, says its case-law collection includes more than 99.9% of published U.S. precedential case law.

On a private validation set from Vals AI’s Legal Research Bench, OpenAI reported better results than GPT-6 Astra using web search alone. At the highest reasoning effort, the company said Astra for Law passed an overall correctness check on 54.0% of 200 questions, compared with 38.7% for the web-search configuration — a 40% relative improvement. OpenAI also said the legal product found 24% more reference cases on case-law questions and, on an audited set, retrieved up to 54% more relevant target passages from the correct opinions.

The benchmark figures remain OpenAI-reported claims. OpenAI’s announcement does not provide enough run data to reproduce them.

For confidential work, OpenAI said eligible firms receive Zero Data Retention on the API and that ChatGPT Enterprise use is excluded from human review by default. Its general API data-control documentation says Zero Data Retention requires approval and compatibility depends on the endpoint and capability. OpenAI has not specified which Astra for Law API endpoints and tool combinations will support the control.

OpenAI said it is working with Latham & Watkins on governance for information permissions, ethical walls, client instructions and firm oversight. The company also described custom ChatGPT Enterprise workflows developed with Sullivan & Cromwell for agreement analysis, Ropes & Gray for deal diligence and Cooley for initial public offering preparation.

The launch includes 26 partner-built legal plugins, among them connections involving iManage, Intapp, DeepJudge and Thomson Reuters. OpenAI also listed nine community plugins containing 47 adaptable custom skills.

OpenAI plans to offer the product through its API as gpt-6-astra-law, including to legal-technology providers Harvey and Legora, but it did not announce pricing or a release date. The company also made ChatGPT for Word generally available on September 17, describing proofreading, suggested edits and formatting checks as legal-drafting uses.