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Court Rules AI Conversations Are Not Privileged: What United States v. Heppner Means for You
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, Orrick, 2026
Read the originalRead on October 17, 2026
- What it is
- A law firm's analysis of the February 2026 ruling in United States v. Heppner, in which a federal judge in New York held that a defendant's conversations with a public AI chatbot were not protected by privilege or work product.
- How much weight it carries
- This is a law firm's analysis, not the opinion itself, which we did not retrieve. Commentators disagree on the exact date and on how far the reasoning reaches. Check the docket, No. 25-cr-503 (JSR), before relying on details.
Facts taken from this source
- On February 13, 2026, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York ruled that a non-attorney's communications with a generative AI platform were not protected by attorney-client privilege or work product.
“On February 13, 2026, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion addressing whether non-attorney communications with a generative AI platform are protected by the attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine. Judge Rakoff ruled that they are not.” (Opening paragraphs)
- In United States v. Heppner, the defendant used Claude, a publicly available AI assistant, to analyze his legal situation on his own, without direction from his attorneys.
“He did this on his own initiative, without direction from his attorneys.” (The Case)
- Orrick says Anthropic's consumer privacy policy, to which every user consents, lets the company use user inputs for training and reserves the right to disclose them to third parties.
“uses that data for training purposes and reserves the right to disclose it to third parties” (Section on the Heppner analysis)