OpenAI Launches Astra for Law Targeting AmLaw 200 Firms

OpenAI launched Astra for Law on Thursday, a specialized AI foundation powered by the GPT-6 Astra model designed for the legal industry. The tool targets the AmLaw 200—the 200 largest American law firms—as part of a broader strategy to develop industry-specific AI for sectors such as healthcare, education, and financial services.

To reduce hallucinations and improve legal reasoning, the system integrates a legal search index of over 230 million URLs covering U.S. case law, statutes, and regulations. Through a partnership with the Free Law Project, OpenAI incorporated the CourtListener collection, which encompasses more than 99.9% of published U.S. precedential case law. Validation using the Legal Research Bench from Vals AI, Inc. showed the tool passed correctness checks on 54% of legal research questions, compared to 38.7% for the standard GPT-6 Astra model.

OpenAI is collaborating with Latham & Watkins to develop firm oversight features and ethical walls. The product includes 26 new plugins for tools like Clio and Relativity, and is being integrated by legal tech companies including Thomson Reuters, Harvey, and iManage. The tool will first launch via Trusted Access in ChatGPT and Codex before becoming available through the API. This release follows a similar legal AI offering from rival Anthropic in May.