OpenAI is positioning itself as legal counsel. Thursday saw the firm unveil Astra for Law, its highly anticipated service for legal tasks. While attorneys have already embraced ChatGPT, the fresh release adds plugin capabilities, improved legal case search, and custom model adjustments to enable further development.
With an upcoming IPO, OpenAI is targeting niche markets. The legal introduction is another step in its strategy to dominate AI-powered work tools across sectors. Recently, it introduced ChatGPT for Financial Services, tailored for Wall Street. It has also rolled out specialized versions for educators, healthcare providers, life‑science researchers, and personal health and finance users.
The announcement parallels Anthropic’s legal product launched in May, its main competitor. Both offerings included numerous integrations, but OpenAI additionally customized its model for law by embedding specific tools and adjusting settings.
“Success comes from concentrating on the client rather than the competitor,” stated Jason Boehmig, OpenAI’s head of legal products, during a press briefing.
Astra for Law aims at the legal technology sector and the 200 biggest U.S. law firms — collectively the AmLaw 200, Boehmig noted. The service runs on OpenAI’s most advanced and costly model.
“We’ve addressed how to remain at the cutting edge of capability while ensuring the output aligns with a particular kind of knowledge work,” Boehmig explained.
Sherwin Wu, a technical staff member at OpenAI, explained that the model adjustments anchor it in “real case law,” reducing hallucinations and delivering “much more reliable legal reasoning.”
The system now provides responses roughly twice the length of standard Astra answers, according to the company.
“Attorneys prefer longer replies,” Boehmig added. “That’s what we heard in the feedback.”
Legal tech firms such as Harvey and Legora can integrate the tool into their platforms. The release also includes ChatGPT plugins from those companies and from Thomson Reuters, iManage, DeepJudge, and other partners.
Wu noted that the legal team has collaborated closely with the financial services group and will soon introduce one of its highlighted features — a citations tool — to the legal product.
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