Your AI Conversations Are Not Privileged: What a New SDNY Ruling Means for Every Lawyer and Client

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A federal judge has confirmed what many suspected, but few wanted to hear: conversations with AI tools are not protected by attorney-client privilege. On February 10, in United States v. Heppner, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York ruled that dozens of documents a criminal defendant generated using a non-enterprise consumer version of Anthropic's Claude are neither privileged nor protected as “work product.” The decision is the first of its kind, and its reasoning should affect how every attorney advises clients about AI...

See the bench ruling: https://www.mindingyourbusinesslitigation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/53/2026/02/Bench_Ruling_on_AI_and_Privilege_1771361150.pdf

Author: Andrew R. Lee, Jason M. Loring, Graham H. Ryan, Jones Walker LLP