ChatGPT-5 Release and Uses in the Legal Industry

OpenAI released ChatGPT-5 today, introducing a range of new features that could offer significant benefits to legal professionals. The company describes improvements in reasoning, speed, and the ability to process very large amounts of information at once. If these capabilities work as designed, law firms and in-house counsel could potentially review entire case files, including briefs, correspondence, and exhibits, in a single pass, connect related facts, and generate jurisdiction-aware drafts in minutes. GPT-5 is also built to handle more than just text. It includes the ability to process scanned documents, transcripts, and even video evidence, while identifying relevant precedent and integrating with existing legal tools.

Another area of focus is GPT-5’s ability to function more like a capable legal assistant, running multi-step (agentic) workflows with minimal oversight. This could mean monitoring dockets, cross-referencing new rulings with client data, and flagging important developments while attorneys focus on higher-value strategy. OpenAI notes improvements in reliability and “safe completions” to reduce errors and hallucinations, but these advancements, like all new features, will need to be tested in real-world legal scenarios to confirm how they perform in practice.

Security has also been emphasized in the new release, which includes deployment options such as private cloud hosting, behind-the-firewall installations, zero-retention agreements, and role-based access controls. These safeguards could make it possible to explore GPT-5’s capabilities while keeping client confidentiality intact. As always, legal professionals should never upload privileged or sensitive client information into a free or unsecured version of ChatGPT, but with the right security setup and careful testing, GPT-5 could become an even more valuable new tool for the legal industry.