The honest ChatGPT alternative for UK law firms

Most UK law firms have already discovered AI the awkward way: a junior fee-earner pasted a piece of client matter into a personal ChatGPT account, the partner found out, and now the firm needs a position.

This post is the honest comparison of the four real options — ChatGPT Team / Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, a per-user Claude.ai subscription, and a private AI like AI In Your Pocket — for an SRA-regulated practice of roughly 5 to 50 fee-earners.

The SRA-shaped problem

The SRA Code of Conduct (paragraph 6.3) requires you to keep client affairs confidential. That doesn't outlaw cloud AI — solicitors use cloud email, cloud case-management, cloud document management every day. What it does require is that you understand where client data goes, who can see it, and whether that disclosure is consistent with your duty to the client.

For ChatGPT (the consumer product), the answer is uncomfortable: OpenAI uses conversations from the free and Plus tiers to train its models unless you opt out per-conversation. For most law firms, that's a non-starter for client matter data.

ChatGPT Team and Enterprise close that loop — those tiers contractually do not train on customer data. But you're still routing client matter facts through a US-based provider, and the audit and DLP story is thinner than what most firms expect from their existing case-management vendor.

How the four options actually compare

ChatGPT Team / Enterprise: strong product, contractually doesn't train on your data, but priced per-seat per-month and your data still leaves your network. For a 15-person firm at £25/user/month, that's £4,500/year forever.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365: tightly integrated with Word, Outlook, and the Microsoft 365 graph. Priced at roughly £24.70/user/month on top of your existing M365 licence. The integration is genuinely useful for matter management; the data goes through Microsoft's tenancy, which most firms already trust for email and SharePoint.

Claude.ai Team: a strong model, per-conversation rather than per-matter memory, no audit trail by default. Roughly £24/user/month.

AI In Your Pocket: one-off £1,997 (your IT installs it) or £3,497 (we install it for you), runs on a Windows machine in your office. Client data stays on your infrastructure. The team uses it through Telegram on their phones and desktops, with persistent per-fee-earner memory. No per-seat pricing. Optional £497/year support.

When to pick which

Pick ChatGPT Enterprise if your firm is already deep into Microsoft-free workflows and wants a single supplier for AI tools across the practice. Expect to brief your client base proactively.

Pick Microsoft Copilot if you're already paying for M365 Business Premium, your matter docs live in SharePoint, and you want AI embedded inside Word/Outlook. The integration is the entire point.

Pick AI In Your Pocket if you handle work where client data really shouldn't leave your infrastructure — private client, family, criminal, immigration, contentious work involving NDAs — and you want one bill, not a per-seat-per-month line item that grows with headcount.

What "private" actually means here

AI In Your Pocket runs an AI engine (currently Anthropic Claude; OpenAI / OpenRouter / local Ollama land in v1.1) using your own provider keys. The conversation history is stored on your office machine. VantagePoint Networks — the company that builds the product — has zero ability to see your conversations. With local Ollama, even the AI provider sees nothing.

For Article 9 special-category data (criminal, immigration, health) we recommend the local Ollama path. For drafting general client correspondence and research, the cloud Anthropic path is appropriate; Anthropic contractually does not train on API traffic.

Realistic limitations

AI In Your Pocket is not a case-management system. It doesn't bill, it doesn't track matters, it doesn't integrate with your DMS in v1.

It is not a substitute for a fee-earner. Output is a junior assistant's draft. Always review before issuing to a client.

It is not appropriate for unsupervised client communication. The team uses it for drafting, summarising, and research that they then review and sign off.

Next step

If you're an SRA-regulated practice, the sector-specific page at /for/law-firms covers the SRA-specific compliance points and pricing in more depth.

If you want to talk through whether this is right for your firm, email info@vpnetworks.co.uk — a 20-minute call is usually enough to know either way.