ChatGPT Review: Artificial Intelligence for Lawyers

Free vs Paid (ChatGPT Plus)

ChatGPT was the first AI to breakthrough into public awareness in late 2022. It was trained on publicly available information on the internet. The free version’s “learning” stopped in 2021. The paid version includes newer material in its database. For many questions this distinction doesn’t matter, but for others it will. As a family law attorney, for example, you could safely ask the free version for article ideas for newly-single parents. The information’s age is less relevant than, for example, asking for smartphone recommendations.

Other improvements in the paid version include a newer, faster response generator, and priority access during busy times.

By default, ChatGPT may store your conversations to improve its models, unless you opt out. You can disable this in Settings ? Data Controls ? Chat History & Training, which prevents your content from being used to train or improve future versions of the model.

Enterprise, Team, and Custom GPT API use do not use your prompts or data for training at all. These options are designed for full data privacy and security compliance.

Multimodal Capabilities (Text, Images, Audio)

ChatGPT can now process not only text but also images and voice input, especially with GPT-4o. This allows users to upload photos for analysis, describe visuals, and have natural voice conversations with the assistant.

Custom GPTs

You can create your own version of ChatGPT, called a Custom GPT, with unique instructions, knowledge, and API calls. No programming is required, and these can be shared or used privately to tailor the assistant to specific roles (e.g., legal advisor, tutor, code reviewer).

Code Interpreter (Advanced Data Analysis)

The code interpreter can perform calculations, generate graphs, analyze large datasets (like CSVs), and manipulate text or files. It’s especially useful for data professionals, researchers, and power users looking to automate analysis tasks.

Memory

ChatGPT can remember helpful facts about you across sessions, such as your name, writing style, or preferences—if you enable memory. You can view, edit, or delete stored memories at any time via the settings panel.

Web Browsing

When enabled (GPT-4o and paid tiers), ChatGPT can browse the internet in real time to retrieve current information. This is essential for staying up to date on news, market trends, or researching recent facts beyond its training cutoff.

Found in Other Programs

While ChatGPT is best known for the chatbot, available the web and mobile apps for iOS and Android, many vendors are building ChatGPT into their own products. These third-party tools could be as simple as a different front-end to ChatGPT to a full-scale incorporation into their product.  ChatGPT may exist in or be “coming soon to” something that you already pay for.

A Good Place to Start

In addition to carrying on a “conversation” based on your questions, ChatGPT can summarize documents and spreadsheets you upload and even do creative writing like drafting scripts for commercials. For firms that are true “one man bands” this could be an enormous timesaver. But please remember to think of AI’s answers as a draft from an intern or summer associate, not something that is automatically ready for primetime.”

For general use, people seeking a quick answer on a non-critical question or who’d like to get basic background information on a topic should consider ChatGPT. This tool can also help with creating draft language for websites, blog posts, letters, and marketing materials.