Vendor offers were checked on their own sites on Oct 2026. Offers change often, so confirm on the vendor's page before you rely on one. Irys publishes this guide and is one of the tools listed.
1. What “free” usually means
Four different things get called free in legal AI. They behave differently, and the difference decides whether the offer is useful to you.
A time-limited trial. Full or near-full access for a fixed period, often seven days. When it ends you pay or lose access. A trial tells you the most about the product, because you test the real thing.
A seat-limited free tier. One user, or a small number of users, can use the product with no end date. The limit is who can use it, not how much.
A usage-limited free tier. No end date, but caps on messages, storage or features. It is good for light use and for learning the interface. It is a poor fit for a real matter, because the cap arrives mid-task.
A free general-purpose chatbot used for legal work. Not a legal product at all, but the most common free option. It has the lowest barrier and the weakest fit for client work, for the reasons in section 3.
Many legal-specific vendors offer no self-serve free option and start with a demo or a requested trial. A requested trial is still free, but a person has to approve it first.
2. Free offers, tool by tool
Each row states only what the vendor's own page showed on Oct 2026. Where a vendor publishes no free offer, the row says so. A “no public free tier or trial” entry does not mean the vendor never gives trials. It means none is offered publicly.
| Tool | Free offer, as stated on the vendor's own site (checked Oct 2026) |
|---|---|
| Irys | 7-day free trial of Irys One, no credit card required. The pricing page also lists a Free plan (3 AI messages per day, 10 saved chats, 25 MB of storage) and Lite at $19.99 per month (12 messages per day, 175 MB). Irys pricing → |
| Harvey | No free trial or free tier is shown on the site. Every call to action is Request a Demo. |
| Legora | No public free tier or trial. The calls to action on the site are Book a demo and Log in. |
| CoCounsel (Thomson Reuters) | CoCounsel Essentials has a Request free trial button. The trial is requested, not instant. This page is on Thomson Reuters' Canadian site, so availability may differ by country. |
| Westlaw (Thomson Reuters) | Westlaw Advantage has a Request free trial link for a 7-day trial. |
| Lexis+ AI | Free trial by form: the page says to request a free trial by submitting the form, for a 2-day trial. |
| Spellbook | A 7-day trial of the Spellbook Suite (Word add-in features and the Associate agent). No permanent free tier. Pricing is not displayed on the site. |
| Paxton | A 7-day trial on its Individual plans. No permanent free tier is shown. |
| GC AI | Free trial available, with a Try for Free sign-up button. No permanent free tier is shown. |
| Claude (Anthropic) | Free plan at $0 on consumer terms, with web, desktop and mobile chat, web search and file creation. Usage limits reset on a rolling five-hour window. This is a general-purpose chatbot, not a legal product. |
| Gemini (Google) | Free plan with a Google Account, including Deep Research and Gems, with varying access to its larger model and usage limits. This is a general-purpose chatbot, not a legal product. |
ChatGPT and Clio are not in the table. We could not confirm their current free offers on the vendors' own pages on the check date, and this guide states nothing it cannot source. Check their sites directly.
For how paid plans are structured once the free period ends, see the legal AI pricing guide and the Irys pricing page.
3. Risks of free chatbots for client work
A free chatbot is fine for many tasks. Brainstorming a structure, explaining a concept or tidying your own prose carry little risk. Client work is different, and three issues matter.
Confidentiality.Anything you type into a chatbot is sent to the provider. Whether that is acceptable depends on the provider's terms for your exact plan, your client's consent and your jurisdiction's rules. The American Bar Association's Formal Opinion 512 (2024) addresses generative AI and confidentiality, including when informed client consent may be needed. Read it, and your own state bar's guidance.
No citation checking. A general-purpose chatbot writes fluent text. It is not built to confirm that a case exists, says what it is cited for, or is still good law. Courts have sanctioned lawyers for filing citations that a chatbot invented, including in Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y. 2023). Any case a chatbot gives you has to be checked in a primary source before it goes near a filing.
Retention and training terms.Providers set different rules for how long conversations are kept and whether they can be used to improve models. Those rules often differ between free and paid plans, and they change. Read the current terms for the plan you are actually on, and do not assume a paid plan's terms apply to a free account.
None of this means free chatbots are off limits. It means you decide what goes in, you verify what comes out, and you know the terms. If you cannot do all three for a task, use a different tool or a different task.
4. How to run a useful 7-day trial
Most trials fail because the lawyer signs up, clicks around and gets pulled into a deadline. Seven days passes quickly. Decide what you will test before you start.
What to test on day one. Start with work where you already know the right answer, so you can grade the tool instead of trusting it:
- Upload one real contract you already know well, and ask for a summary, the key obligations and any unusual clauses. You can check every answer against what you know.
- Ask a research question you have already answered, then check each case it cites against a primary source.
- Run the same question twice and compare. Consistency matters as much as the first answer.
- Check where your documents go and how long they are kept. Read the retention and training terms before you load anything sensitive.
What to bring.
- A closed matter or a document with client identifiers removed, if the vendor's terms are not yet cleared by your firm.
- Two or three tasks from your real week: a first draft, a deposition summary, a research memo, a clause comparison.
- A research question where you already know the controlling authority.
- A checklist that matches your firm's questions: confidentiality, citation checking, export of your work, price after the trial.
Days two to seven. Use it on real, low-risk work as it comes up. Note where it saved time and where you had to redo its output. On the last day, write down what the paid plan costs, what happens to your documents if you cancel, and whether you would pay for it at your current volume. The buyer's checklist has the full list of questions.
5. Buyer questions
Is there a free legal AI that is safe for client work?
Safety depends on the terms, not the price. Before any client information goes in, read the vendor's retention and training terms for the exact plan you are on, and check your jurisdiction's ethics guidance on generative AI. If you cannot confirm the terms, use a closed matter or remove identifying detail.
What is the difference between a free trial and a free tier?
A free trial is full access for a fixed period, then you pay or lose access. A free tier has no end date but limits usage, storage or features. On the vendor pages checked for this guide, most legal-specific vendors offer a trial and the general-purpose chatbots offer a free tier. Irys lists both.
Can I use free ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for legal research?
You can, but they are general-purpose tools. They are not built to check a citation against a legal database, so every case they name needs to be verified in a primary source. Courts have sanctioned lawyers who filed unverified AI-generated citations, including in Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y. 2023).
Do I need a credit card to start a trial?
It varies by vendor, and most vendor pages checked for this guide do not say. Irys states that no credit card is required for its 7-day trial. Ask before you sign up for any other trial, and check what happens when it ends.
What happens to my documents when a trial ends?
Ask before you start. The questions are whether the vendor deletes your uploads, how long retention lasts, and whether you can export your work. Irys states on its pricing page that all plans include 90-day data retention with automatic deletion.
Is a seven-day trial long enough?
Seven days is enough to test two or three real tasks, if you plan them in advance. It is not enough to roll a tool out across a firm. Use the trial to decide whether the tool is worth a longer evaluation.
This guide is based on vendor pages read on Oct 2026. “No public free tier or trial” means none was shown on the page listed. Offers, limits and regional availability change often, so confirm current details with the vendor before you decide. Irys facts come from the Irys pricing page. Irys (formerly Iqidis) publishes this guide and competes with several of the tools listed.
