Overview
- Judge Jed Rakoff in February 2026 ordered defendant Bradley Heppner to turn over 31 documents he created with Anthropic’s Claude, ruling the AI exchanges were not protected by attorney‑client privilege.
- Rakoff wrote that a user has no attorney‑client relationship with a chatbot and noted platform terms that tell users they have no privacy in their inputs.
- On the same date, a Michigan magistrate judge treated a pro se litigant’s ChatGPT conversations as her own litigation work product, underscoring a split in early court rulings.
- More than a dozen major US law firms have since issued advisories and updated engagement letters warning that sharing legal information with public AI tools can waive privilege, with Sher Tremonte spelling this out in client contracts.
- Firms now urge clients to use closed enterprise AI systems and to note in prompts that work is done at a lawyer’s direction, while lawyers expect further rulings to clarify when AI chats are discoverable.