OpenAI has launched Astra for Law, a specialized version of its GPT-6 Astra model tailored for legal professionals. The tool integrates specific settings and context designed for legal workflows. To enhance functionality, the company introduced 26 new ecosystem plugins that connect ChatGPT directly to specialized software used by law firms.
Internal testing shows Astra for Law outperforms standard web-search-based models. It demonstrated a 40% increase in research accuracy, identified 24% more reference cases, and retrieved 54% more relevant passages from court opinions. These improvements aim to provide more comprehensive results for legal research tasks.
The product is currently available to selected law firms via the Trusted Access program in ChatGPT and Codex. OpenAI plans to expand availability by adding the tool to its API in the near future. The company intends to refine the model based on ongoing feedback from lawyers and legal technology partners.
The legal technology sector has seen significant investment, with funding exceeding $2.4 billion in the first nine months of 2025. This move by OpenAI follows broader trends in the industry, where AI is increasingly used for research, contracting, compliance, and billing tasks within law firms.
Competition in the legal AI space is growing. In May, Anthropic updated its Claude platform with over 20 Model Context Protocol connectors and 12 plugins specifically for legal practice areas. Anthropic noted that legal professionals represent the most active user group for its Claude Cowork tools.
