Tool Name & Summary
ChatGPT is an advanced AI language model by OpenAI that serves as a versatile “AI assistant” for lawyers. Corporate legal teams use ChatGPT to streamline legal research, analyze complex documents, and draft contracts or memos more efficiently. It operates via a conversational chat interface, allowing attorneys to pose questions and receive detailed, natural-language answers.
Pricing: ChatGPT is offered under several plans tailored to different needs:
- Free Version ($0): Basic access to ChatGPT with limited features and slower responses. Suitable for simple queries but constrained in capacity (uses older/smaller models).
- ChatGPT Plus ($20/month): Enhanced individual plan with priority access to GPT-4 for more sophisticated reasoning and faster replies. Plus users get features like advanced data analysis and web browsing, but with usage limits on the latest models.
- ChatGPT Pro ($200/month): Premium plan designed for businesses (starting at 2+ users). It includes everything in Plus, with higher GPT-4 usage limits, access to GPT-o3-mini, and the newest model ChatGPT4.5. Notably, the Pro plan also offers Deep Research capabilities – an advanced feature for comprehensive, multi-source research.
- ChatGPT Team ($25/month/seat, minimum of two seats): Premium plan designed for businesses (starting at 2+ users). It includes everything in Plus, with higher GPT-4 usage limits, the ability to share custom AI workflows in a team workspace, and admin controls for managing multiple attorneys. Notably, the Team plan also offers Deep Research capabilities – an advanced feature for comprehensive, multi-source research – which until recently was only in the $200 Pro tier. Team subscriptions ensure corporate data privacy as well (ChatGPT will not train on your team’s conversations by default), a critical factor for legal confidentiality.
- Enterprise (Custom Pricing): Scalable solution for large organizations, offering unlimited access to the ChatGPT models, bigger context windows for lengthy documents, dedicated support, and enterprise-grade security. Deep Research is included here too, along with bespoke integrations.
Deep Research, OpenAI’s newest feature, is available in the ChatGPT Pro and Enterprise plans (and now Plus). This mode empowers ChatGPT to conduct in-depth, multi-step web research with source citations, greatly enhancing its usefulness for rigorous legal work.
Key
FIG. 1 ChatGPT interface highlighting the new Deep research mode, alongside file attach and web search options.
- Natural Language Legal Assistant: ChatGPT understands complex legal queries and terminology, allowing corporate lawyers to ask questions in plain English (or legalese) and get coherent answers. It can draft emails, memos, and contract clauses, or explain legal concepts, by leveraging the powerful GPT-4 model in paid plans. This means even intricate questions about regulations or case law can yield meaningful responses.
- Advanced “Deep Research” Mode: A standout feature in ChatGPT’s toolkit is the Deep Research capability. This mode goes beyond the usual single-chat exchange – it autonomously conducts multi-step research across the internet to produce a comprehensive report on a given topicibm.comeweek.com. When a lawyer activates Deep Research for a query, ChatGPT will:
- Break down complex legal questions into sub-tasks and intelligently plan a research strategyibm.com.
- Browse multiple online sources (cases, statutes, articles, regulatory websites) relevant to the query, reading through text, PDFs, and even images if needed.
- Analyze and cross-reference information across these sources, extracting key details and spotting inconsistencies or patterns. It’s particularly effective at pulling specific facts from large documents and comparing information between sourcesibm.com – ideal for lengthy contracts or regulatory guidance.
- Synthesize findings into a structured, in-depth report complete with clear citations back to the original sourceseweek.com. The output often includes bullet points, summaries, or even tables, all traceable to references for easy verification. (For example, instead of just saying “This clause is uncommon,” ChatGPT’s report might cite an industry publication or case law snippet supporting that statement.)
- Display a transparent “chain of thought” or progress log as it works, so the user can see what sites are being consulted and how the research is proceedingibm.com. This transparency helps lawyers trust but also verify the AI’s research process.
- Document Upload & Analysis: ChatGPT allows users to attach documents (such as contracts, statutes, or company policies) directly into the chat. In standard mode, GPT-4 will read the file and answer questions or summarize it. With the latest updates, Deep Research can incorporate these uploads too – for instance, an attorney can upload a contract and ask for an analysis with relevant case law, and the AI will scour the web for references while reviewing the text. OpenAI has improved the system’s ability to process large uploaded documents as part of researcheweek.com, meaning it can handle due diligence binders or lengthy agreements in its analysis. This feature greatly aids contract review and document-intensive tasks.
- Collaboration and Custom GPTs (Team Plan): The Team plan introduces collaborative features beneficial for corporate legal teams. Attorneys can create custom GPTs (fine-tuned chatbots with specific knowledge or tone) and share them within their organization. For example, a team could develop a custom GPT specialized in the company’s contracting policies or a specific area of law, and every team member can leverage that AI assistant for consistent guidance. Admin controls let the legal department manage access and ensure compliance with data policies. Moreover, all chats under the Team plan are kept private within the team – the data is not used to train OpenAI’s models by default (other plans require changing the configuration to obtain this feature), addressing confidentiality concerns when working with sensitive client information or proprietary documents.
- Powerful Language Model with Reasoning: Under the hood, ChatGPT Plus/Pro use GPT-4 (and newer variants like “GPT-4.5” optimized for longer outputs) which offers advanced reasoning abilities. It can handle complex instructions, translate legal jargon, and maintain context over lengthy discussions (useful when analyzing multi-clause contracts or a series of related questions). Deep Research is built on OpenAI’s o3 model, further fine-tuned for research tasks, which significantly boosts the quality and depth of analysis for challenging questions. This results in more accurate and well-reasoned answers to legal queries than the base model alone – a recent evaluation showed the Deep Research model significantly outperformed the standard GPT-4 in expert-level accuracy.
Legal Tasks the Tool Assists With
ChatGPT’s capabilities align with many tasks that corporate lawyers tackle daily. By combining GPT-4’s language proficiency with the new research features, the tool can assist in:
- Comprehensive Legal Research: For complex legal questions or unfamiliar areas of law, ChatGPT’s Deep Research provides a huge advantage. Instead of manually searching through cases, statutes, and secondary sources, a lawyer can prompt ChatGPT to do it. For example, “Research the latest regulations on data privacy for financial institutions in the EU and US”. Deep Research will scour regulatory websites, recent news, and legal analysis across jurisdictions, then deliver a concise report with citations to the relevant laws and commentary. This accelerates due diligence and memo-writing – what might take an associate many hours or days, ChatGPT can handle in minutesaiwire.net. The clear sourcing of answers means attorneys can quickly validate the informationclio.com before relying on it. In practice, this leads to faster preparation of legal opinions, client updates, or risk assessments, with the AI doing the heavy lifting of gathering authorities.
- Regulatory Compliance Research: Corporate legal departments often need to stay on top of ever-changing regulations (e.g. securities laws, employment regulations, international trade rules). ChatGPT can continuously assist with monitoring and interpreting these changes. Using Deep Research, a lawyer could ask, “What are the new reporting requirements under [Latest Regulation] and how do they compare to last year’s rules?” The AI will find the text of the new regulation, interpret the key differences, and perhaps even pull in analysis from law firm blogs or government guidance, all citedeweek.com. This saves significant time in compliance research. It’s also useful for quickly understanding multi-jurisdictional requirements – ChatGPT might assemble a side-by-side summary of rules across different states or countries. In short, the Pro plan’s research ability acts as an always-on regulatory researcher, helping ensure the company remains compliant without the lawyers spending hours combing through websites.
- Contract Drafting & Analysis: Drafting and reviewing contracts is a core corporate legal task where ChatGPT excels as an assistant. In drafting mode, ChatGPT (with GPT-4) can generate initial clauses or entire contracts based on user prompts (e.g., “Draft a non-disclosure agreement for a vendor relationship”). It understands legal language and can incorporate common standards or specific terms as instructed. More impressively, when analyzing contracts, the Deep Research feature can enhance the process by checking each clause against publicly available benchmarks. For instance, an in-house attorney reviewing an indemnification clause could ask ChatGPT to investigate how that clause compares to industry norms or if there’s any case law interpreting similar language. ChatGPT would then search online databases and articles, perhaps finding a law review or court decision discussing that type of clause, and include that information in its answer. This kind of analysis helps spot unusual or risky provisions during contract review. Additionally, by uploading a contract document, lawyers can have ChatGPT summarize key terms, identify obligations and termination triggers, or even flag potential legal issues (with caveats that it’s not 100% foolproof). The result is faster contract negotiations – the attorney gets a head start on understanding the document before diving into manual review.
- Due Diligence & Document Review: In corporate transactions (like mergers and acquisitions) or internal investigations, lawyers may need to review vast amounts of documents – financial statements, corporate records, emails, compliance reports, etc. ChatGPT’s ability to process and summarize documents is a game-changer here. An attorney can feed segments of a due diligence report or a stack of policy documents into ChatGPT and ask for key takeaways or risk factors. With the Team plan, multiple lawyers can work in parallel with ChatGPT on different documents and share their findings. Deep Research can even be used to put information in context: for example, “Summarize the target company’s pending litigation and find any public news about those cases” – the AI could read the litigation summaries provided and also search news outlets for any mention of those lawsuits, then compile a comprehensive overview. This not only speeds up due diligence but can also reduce the chance of missing a critical piece of information. The Team plan’s no-data-training privacy assurance is crucial here – attorneys can confidently analyze confidential documents knowing they won’t leave the team’s vault.
- Team Knowledge Sharing: Beyond individual tasks, ChatGPT under the Team plan becomes a collective tool for the legal department. Lawyers can share useful prompts or custom AI setups for recurring tasks. For example, if one lawyer develops an effective prompt for analyzing compliance obligations in vendor contracts, that can be turned into a custom GPT or a saved conversation that colleagues can reuse. This fosters consistency in how the team approaches legal issues and leverages AI. The central admin dashboard allows the general counsel or IT team to manage user access and ensure everyone is following best practices (e.g., not uploading highly sensitive data without approval). In essence, ChatGPT Team can serve as an AI research assistant available to the whole department, amplifying the productivity of each lawyer and ensuring that insights discovered by one team member can benefit others. For corporate legal departments facing heavy workloads and tight deadlines, this collaboration feature is a significant value-add.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Deep Research provides thorough, cited answers for complex legal questionseweek.com. This increases confidence in the AI’s output and makes verification easy. | High cost for Pro plan – at ~$200/month, it’s a significant expenseibm.com, which might be hard to justify for solo practitioners or small firms. |
| Significant time savings in research and drafting – ChatGPT can produce a detailed report in minutes rather than hoursaiwire.net, accelerating due diligence and legal analysis. | Limited Deep Research queries on non-Pro plans – users get ~10 deep research tasks per month. Heavy research needs could quickly exhaust this allotment (Pro at $200 has 120 queries). |
| Improved document review capabilities – able to ingest long contracts or briefs and summarize or analyze them, which is ideal for corporate document review workflows. | Deep Research is slower than standard chat responses – each research task can take 5–30 minutes to complete. Lawyers must plan for this delay, unlike instant Q&A. |
| Data privacy and compliance – Team/Enterprise plans do not use your data to train AI models, and include admin controls, addressing confidentiality concerns for corporate use. | AI can still make mistakes – ChatGPT may occasionally generate incorrect or nonsensical legal points (“hallucinations”). All outputs require attorney review, and the AI might not understand nuanced legal judgment calls. |
| Collaboration features – multiple lawyers can share custom AI tools and insights across the team, promoting consistency and collective intelligence. | Value depends on usage – Firms with low volume of repetitive research tasks might not see enough benefit to warrant the Pro or Teams subscription. Without frequent use of deep research or heavy GPT-4 use, the Plus plan could be sufficient at a fraction of the cost. |
Detailed Review
In-depth Analysis: ChatGPT has rapidly become a popular tool in the legal sector, but its utility for corporate lawyers has reached new heights with the introduction of the Pro plan and Deep Research feature. In this detailed review, we examine how these enhancements translate into real-world advantages for corporate legal work, and where the limitations lie.
1. Deep Research – Elevating Legal Research and Accuracy: One of the historical pain points with AI chatbots in law was the reliability of the information – a vanilla ChatGPT might produce a confident-sounding answer that in reality had no source (a hallucination), or it might miss a crucial case because it didn’t have access to updated databases. The Deep Research feature directly tackles this by giving ChatGPT access to the live web and a methodical approach to research. When a corporate attorney uses Deep Research for a complex query, ChatGPT effectively becomes a junior researcher scouring the library and internet for you.
For example, imagine a scenario where a lawyer needs to research “the impact of a new environmental regulation on a specific industry.” Using Deep Research, ChatGPT will search government websites for the text of the regulation, news sites for commentary or industry analyses, and legal databases for any related case law or guidance. It might read a 100-page regulatory PDF and multiple articles, then distill all that into a 10-page report with the key points – including quotes from the sources and citations linking back to them. In a test, OpenAI demonstrated that Deep Research can synthesize hundreds of online sources and produce a comprehensive report in a fraction of the time it takes a person
aiwire.net. For the lawyer, this means getting a well-rounded first-draft of a research memo without spending all night on Google and Westlaw. The included citations are invaluable; attorneys can quickly click through to verify a point of law or identify which external source the AI is referencing (e.g., a specific statute or a court opinion excerpt). This significantly boosts confidence in using AI for substantive legal research – it’s no longer a black box that “said something about Section 409A”; instead, it will say “Section 409A imposes X requirement”
eweek.com and footnote the exact IRS or DOJ guidance it pulled that from. For corporate lawyers dealing with fast-moving regulatory questions, having this breadth of information at their fingertips is a game-changer. It turns ChatGPT from a general Q&A tool into a mini legal research platform of its own. That said, lawyers must still critically evaluate the output. Deep Research, while far more reliable than unsourced chat, can occasionally cite less authoritative sources or miss context (for instance, citing a secondary blog instead of the primary law). However, the transparency of the process means any gaps or oddities are easier to spot and correct. In practice, users report that Deep Research’s transparency and thoroughness make it feel like collaborating with a diligent paralegal – one that works at superhuman speed but still benefits from supervision.
2. Contract Analysis & Document Review with AI: Corporate attorneys often grapple with reviewing lengthy contracts and documents, a task that is both labor-intensive and prone to human oversight. Traditional ChatGPT (even with GPT-4) could assist by summarizing or explaining a contract if you pasted it in, but it had no real context beyond what was in the text and its training knowledge. The Pro plan’s tools, combined with Deep Research, expand what’s possible here. Now, a lawyer can upload a contract (say a 60-page software licensing agreement) and not only ask ChatGPT to summarize or identify key clauses, but also prompt it to verify or analyze provisions against external benchmarks. For example, “Review this license agreement and identify any clauses that deviate from standard industry practices or could pose legal risks. Use Deep Research to see how similar clauses have been handled or commented on elsewhere.” This compound task would set ChatGPT into motion: it would read the entire contract (using GPT-4’s large context to keep track of all clauses), then for any unusual or important clause (like an indemnity, limitation of liability, or IP ownership clause), it might search the web for phrases from that clause or related discussions. It could end up finding, for instance, a published article from a law firm or a section of the U.C.C. commentary that discusses why a certain clause wording is problematic, and include that insight in its analysis. The outcome might be a report listing, say, “Clause X – indemnification: This clause is broader than typical; many contracts limit indemnity to direct losses. According to [Source], overly broad indemnities can lead to X, Y, Z issues.” Similarly, for a document review scenario like sifting through corporate policies to ensure they meet a new legal standard, ChatGPT could take each policy, summarize its contents, and check specific requirements via Deep Research (e.g., confirm if the policy language meets the latest OSHA guidance by finding the OSHA publication and comparing). These capabilities can drastically reduce the time lawyers spend on first-pass reviews. Instead of reading 50 documents end-to-end, a lawyer might let ChatGPT summarize each and flag points of concern, then the lawyer can focus only on those flagged areas in detail. It’s important to note that AI is not infallible – it might miss a subtle issue that a human would catch, or misinterpret a clause’s effect – so legal judgment remains paramount. But as an initial sieve and analysis tool, ChatGPT proves extremely valuable. Moreover, because the user can configure the system so that conversations aren’t used to train the AI, lawyers can safely paste actual client documents for analysis without worrying that confidential text will leak into the AI’s training data. This addresses a huge prior barrier to AI adoption in legal workflows (confidentiality), essentially allowing attorneys to use ChatGPT on real case documents with more peace of mind.
3. Free/Plus vs. Pro – A Comparison in Practice: It’s worth contrasting the experience of using the free or standard ChatGPT versus the Pro plan with deep research, especially for demanding corporate legal tasks. On the free tier, ChatGPT can handle simple tasks like answering general legal questions (e.g., “What is the definition of force majeure?”) or producing a quick first draft of a form letter. However, it lacks access to the latest models and cannot browse the web on its own. It also has stricter limits on how much you can input or output in one go. For any serious legal research or lengthy document, the free version falls short – it might even refuse large inputs or produce outdated answers (since its knowledge cutoff might be limited). ChatGPT Plus ($20) improves this by giving individuals access to GPT-4 and features like browsing (Beta) and Advanced Data Analysis. A corporate lawyer with Plus could, for example, use the browsing feature to manually look up a case or ask the model to analyze an uploaded spreadsheet of legal data. However, this still tends to be a one-step-at-a-time process: you pose a question, it answers based on either its training or a single browsing session. Deep Research on the Pro plan, by contrast, automates the multi-step process. It asks clarification questions if needed, then runs off to do the research, which is something a Plus user would have to orchestrate manually through multiple prompts and searches. The Pro plan also offers higher usage limits – for instance, if a big project requires hundreds of prompts or very long outputs, Plus might throttle or cap the usage, whereas Pro is more generous (it’s designed for power users). This can be crucial in a crunch situation (imagine preparing an overnight due diligence report by querying ChatGPT repeatedly on different sections of documents – the last thing you want is to hit a limit). The only edge case where Plus might rival Pro is the new Deep Research availability: as of February 2025, Plus users also get a small allowance of deep research queries. This means an individual lawyer could experiment with the feature without upgrading to Pro. However, the allowance is limited (around 10 reports a month for Plus vs. 120 for the Pro $200 plan, so for heavy use in a corporate setting, a Pro subscription is still the more practical route.
4. Free/Plus vs. Team – A Comparison in Practice: The Team plan is built for business use, meaning data is siloed by default. In practice, many law firms forbid attorneys from using the free/Plus ChatGPT with any client details because of confidentiality concerns. The Team plan removes that hurdle by contractually ensuring data privacy (although there is no guarantee that OpenAI will abide by this term, change this term, which presents a high risk for confidential data). Another practical difference is collaboration: with Plus, your work with ChatGPT is solo; with Team, if one lawyer finds a great way to prompt the AI to draft a certain clause, that knowledge can be shared in the team environment easily, and even junior lawyers can benefit from senior lawyers’ AI-augmented workflows.
4. Workflow Integration and Impact: Adopting ChatGPT Pro in a corporate legal workflow does require some change management. Lawyers must be trained to craft effective prompts and to interpret AI outputs critically. Some firms establish internal guidelines, for example: always double-check citations provided by ChatGPT, never rely on the AI as the final reviewer, and maintain client confidentiality by using the approved Pro workspace only. The Deep Research feature introduces a slight delay in the workflow (waiting up to 30 minutes for a report), but attorneys often work on other tasks in parallel while the AI does its research in the background. Many find that this asynchronous research actually mirrors having a team member: you delegate the research to ChatGPT, and while it’s “in the lab” compiling information, you can draft another part of the document or take a break, then return to find a draft report ready. The quality of these reports, especially for well-defined research questions, has been surprisingly high. Lawyers have noted that the AI sometimes catches obscure details – for instance, finding a regional guideline or a niche case that the legal team hadn’t considered – which can provide a competitive edge in legal strategy. One litigation attorney even commented that “Most lawyers see AI as automation. We see it as a competitive edge. Deep Research analyzes rulings and spots patterns most lawyers miss, in minutes, not days.”. For corporate counsel, this insight might translate to spotting a trend in how certain judges treat merger agreements or identifying a pattern in a regulator’s enforcement actions – insights that inform strategy beyond what traditional research might reveal in the same time frame.
5. Limitations and Considerations: Despite its advantages, ChatGPT is not a silver bullet. Accuracy and Hallucinations: As noted, the AI can still “make things up” on occasion. Deep Research drastically reduces that tendency by tying statements to sources, but if the underlying sources are wrong or the AI misinterprets them, the output could be flawed. Lawyers cannot skip the step of verifying critical points. It helps that Deep Research outputs are accompanied by citations – checking those sources should be part of the workflow (just as one would verify a junior associate’s research memo). Scope of Data: Deep Research is limited to publicly available information. If a question hinges on proprietary data (e.g. an internal company document not on the web or a confidential database), the AI can’t magically know it – unless you provide that data as input. In other words, ChatGPT won’t replace specialized legal research platforms for searching internal document repositories or subscription-based databases that it can’t access. Speed vs. Need: The fact that a deep research query can take up to half an hour means it’s best used for substantial questions, not trivial ones. If you just need a quick definition or a single case reference, it’s often faster to use standard ChatGPT or a traditional legal research tool. The good news is ChatGPT still allows both modes: you can decide per query whether to engage Deep Research or just get a quick GPT-4 answer. Over time, lawyers learn which tool to use for which task – a quick brainstorm for contract language might just need GPT-4’s creativity, whereas a thorough multi-source analysis calls for Deep Research. Cost/Benefit: The Pro plan’s pricing is a consideration. Larger legal departments or firms may find $200/month (or more if multiple seats) a worthwhile investment given the time saved on research and drafting. It effectively adds an AI research assistant to the team. However, smaller practices might struggle with the expense if they can’t fully utilize the features every month. It’s the classic case of weighing an expensive tool against the value of hours saved. Some commentators have noted that while $200/month is affordable for many in corporate America, it could be cost-prohibitive for some, potentially widening a gap between those who have access to such AI tools and those who don’t. Law firms will need to assess how frequently they’d use ChatGPT in their workflows. In pilot programs, many have found that even used sparingly, the first contract it helps review correctly or the first memo it drafts in a pinch can justify the cost by freeing lawyers to focus on higher-level work or take on more matters.
6. Conclusion: ChatGPT with the Pro plan and Deep Research functionality represents a significant advancement in AI tools for corporate lawyers. It transforms the chatbot from a general assistant into a specialized legal research aide capable of handling a surprising amount of heavy lifting – from parsing dense documents to scouring the web for precedent. The integration of this tool can lead to faster turnaround times for legal research, more thorough contract reviews, and even novel strategic insights drawn from large pools of data. At the same time, it demands a responsible approach: lawyers must use their expertise to guide the AI (through good prompts) and to vet its outputs. In a field where accuracy and judgment are paramount, ChatGPT is best seen as an augmenting tool rather than a replacing one. When used wisely, it acts as a force-multiplier for corporate legal teams, handling tedious and time-consuming tasks in the background while attorneys concentrate on client counseling, negotiation, and decision-making. As AI technology continues to evolve, features like Deep Research hint at a future where legal professionals can leverage vast information networks instantly, gaining insights that give their organizations a competitive edge. For now, ChatGPT’s Pro plan offers a practical step into that future – one where mundane legal drudgery is minimized, and human lawyers, supported by AI, can focus on the nuanced, critical aspects of their practice.