Privacy & Cybersecurity Law Blog

A recent federal court ruling held that AI-generated documents prepared by a defendant and later shared with legal counsel were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine. In USA v. Heppner, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the production of 31 documents generated by the defendant using Anthropic’s Claude, notwithstanding that the defendant had incorporated information obtained from counsel as part of the input submitted to the tool, and later shared the AI outputs with his attorneys. The ruling—issued from the bench—provides early judicial guidance on privilege issues related to AI-generated materials, an area with limited existing case law. 

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