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#attorney#legal#lawyer#client#anthropic#protected#privilege#claude#lawyers#https

Discussion (45 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

droidjjabout 1 hour ago
As a lawyer, I'm excited about this, but there are two roadblocks that I'm not sure how Anthropic will navigate:

(1) For non-lawyers who use these skills/connectors/whatchamacallits to try to get legal advice, their communications are not protected by attorney-client privilege. This will absolutely bite some people in the ass.

(2) If a lawyer uses this with confidential client information (which, to the uninitiated, doesn't just mean SSNs and bank account numbers, but "all information relating to the representation of a client") and forgets to toggle off "Help improve Claude" in their settings, they have possibly (maybe even likely) committed malpractice.[1]

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/p...

bryantabout 1 hour ago
Citation for #1 - https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2026/03/united-states-v-he...

> Judge Rakoff of the Southern District of New York — addressing “a question of first impression nationwide” — ruled that written exchanges between a criminal defendant and generative AI platform Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.

Much more to it than this one-liner that I pulled out, but safe to say, don't rely on or put your legal defense etc. (or elements of it) into AI unless you want it discovered.

(not a lawyer, unlike OP, who might be able to refine what I highlighted with more precision)

dolebirchwood11 minutes ago
> exchanges between a criminal defendant and generative AI platform Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine

Shouldn't that have been relatively clear to all parties involved? Maybe not to the defendant, who's apparently clueless.

The AI platform is not an attorney. A defendant's communications with an AI platform are therefore not communications between a client and their attorney, nor will the AI output constitute attorney "work product" because the AI platform is not an attorney.

Doesn't really come across as a novel problem, aside from AI being involved. I'm sure countless defendants have made the stupid mistake of talking about the facts of their case to persons other than their attorney, and those communications came back to bite them in the ass when discovered.

clickety_clack28 minutes ago
Can anyone be your lawyer, or does a lawyer have to be certified somehow?
xboxnolifes21 minutes ago
It is my understanding that they must be certified. You are allowed to represent yourself, but it is my understanding that a non-lawyer cannot represent you.
engineer_227 minutes ago
You have to be admitted to the bar to practice law. Which is to say, other lawyers must recognize you as a lawyer, and this recognition can be taken away.
nerdsniper40 minutes ago
For (1) it's so wild to me that if I pay a lawyer, they can run the same queries on these tools and they are protected by attorney-client privilege, but if I do it to help me prepare my defense, then the exact same queries would be subject to subpoena/discovery.

Does anyone know if there exists any OPSEC procedure for me to use third party tools like this for my own concerning legal questions that is both ethical and allows me to be confident that my interactions won't land in discovery documents?

tptacek6 minutes ago
Wouldn't that same logic exclude evidence from Google searches, like "how to get away with murder"?
JumpCrisscross9 minutes ago
> if I do it to help me prepare my defense, then the exact same queries would be subject to subpoena/discovery

We need a law where someone can clearly designate a chat privileged, with severe consequences for mis-use.

palmotea20 minutes ago
> Does anyone know if there exists any OPSEC procedure for me to use third party tools like this for my own concerning legal questions that is both ethical and allows me to be confident that my interactions won't land in discovery documents?

Isn't that a fundamental misunderstanding? Would "OPSEC" like that amount to destruction of evidence or contempt of court or something like that?

Like if all your incriminating documents are on some encrypted drive, it's not like that defeats discovery. You're supposed to decrypt them and hand them over.

AndrewKemendo23 minutes ago
Self host your own LLM
singleshot_11 minutes ago
Why do you think this would be less discoverable than hosting your own email server?
nvr21914 minutes ago
You’d need to hand that mac mini over if subpoenaed
SkyPuncherabout 1 hour ago
For #2, I’d expect you’d use this through an organization/business account that has data retention turned off by default.
colechristensen36 minutes ago
In the legal world are there certifications for handling privileged information?

For example in the medical world if you are a provider covered by HIPAA you must have a signed "Business Associate Agreement" with any party that handles the covered protected health information (PHI).

unstyledcontentabout 1 hour ago
Just remember that your AI chat history is not protected like attorney client privilege and can be used as evidence against you in court. If you talk to a lawyer and they use AI, those chats are privileged.
singleshot_9 minutes ago
No. If you talk to an attorney and they take reasonable precautions to maintain the integrity of the confidential attorney client relationship, the privilege is preserved. If not, not preserved.
Shankabout 1 hour ago
It seems like they ripped out Lexis, which is probably one of the most important tools for lawyers: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-for-legal/pull/5.
ricardobeat33 minutes ago
> for the legal workflows we see most

I'm a bit bothered by this line. Does it mean this is based on customer's sessions? Are they entitled to build knowledge bases for every profession, topic and workflow in the world using customer data?

lionkor18 minutes ago
Yes they are training on your business's data so that their AI can replace your business later. If you don't believe it, name one thing they didn't train on.
hirsin1 minute ago
It definitely looks like the old tale come true - at Microsoft people would warn against using Google because then Google could figure out what we're working on, since it was pretty easy to tell where a query was coming from.

Sounded far fetched back then, and on the face of it illegal, but now it's just common sense I imagine.

DLarsen28 minutes ago
"Are (legally and morally) entitled" vs "act as if they are entitled"... yes, a big question.
IceHegel17 minutes ago
This seems like a shot across the bow for all large Claude API customers, which I'm sure they saw coming.

But still, a TSMC style pure play model provider would win huge business in the space given how many application companies are being eaten by model companies.

vb-8448about 1 hour ago
I guess at some point we will have lawyers, attorneys and judges using this stuff ... at the point lawyers will become kinda "seo"/"copywriter" experts on how to better trick the others LLM.
gnerd001 minute ago
the look on the face of the Court administrator upon hearing someone describe the "paperclip maximizer" problem.. ominous!
nozzlegear5 minutes ago
I mean, the laws are written down somewhere though. A human can still look at the actual law and surmise that the AI is feeding them bullshit.
forshaperabout 1 hour ago
Almost makes me want to get a law degree.
pawelkomarnickiabout 1 hour ago
It will be hilarious to see this one play out because ChatGPT and Perplexity already do wonders for small-claim issues like tenancy laws, various personal letters, etc.
gosub10039 minutes ago
I would love this for poor people to fight giant corporations via 'lawfare'. It's largely unethical (just like many corporations) but just knowing how to file junk lawsuits that cost corporations millions to fight would be nice.

I dont mean 'frivolous' like prisoners who file pro-se about their ice cream melting [1], but a level or two above that , that costs time and money to produce records and testimony to defend, even if nary a dime is paid out. Basically ask GPT to figure out the terms and theories to file to get your lawsuit accepted, and done by poor people who cannot afford to post $ or repay if they lose. aka "asymmetric warfare" that benefits the little guy, just like the kind private equity or other terrible corporations wield against the poor via"mandatory arbitration" clauses or damages caps and similar rules that always benefit corporations.

1. https://www.deseret.com/1994/3/21/19098386/melted-ice-cream-...

awongh42 minutes ago
How does this compare to the other legal tech ai startup products?

Harvey is valued at $11b

OkWing99about 1 hour ago
Anthropics New Playbook:

`/loop 2days /create-new-{insert-industry}-md-files`

This is only for PR. No one checks what's in those docs, or if these are real, valid or ethical. The goal here is for all news outlets to pick them up. You're not the audience.

Given the amount of free PR they can get from some AI-generated .md files, I'd probably do the same if I was on their boat.

Right now, I don't think any other AI company generates as much as slop as Anthropic does.

nozzlegear3 minutes ago
There's going to be a "Claude for wiping my ass" at this rate.
ares62336 minutes ago
It's like that short animation of a Kiwi bird getting high[1].

Each cycle gets shorter and shorter to sustain the high.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUngLgGRJpo

ares623about 1 hour ago
Does anyone find it weird that Anthropic's Github org is `anthropics` (with an 's') and the `anthropic` username is owned by some random dude in Australia? Imagine the shenanigans someone can achieve with that user.
cube0032 minutes ago
>Imagine the shenanigans someone can achieve with that user.

First step out of line and that account along with anything remotely connected will be banned to oblivion.

Given they share models on Azure, Anthropic will have someone at Microsoft on speed dial.

I've even seen disconnected commit hashes disappear during their security responses which the repo owner has no way of removing.

ares62326 minutes ago
But for a beautiful window of a few minutes absolute chaos will ensue. Seems like a huge risk. And if Github/MS have power to do what you're saying, does it feel irresponsible not to do it pre-emptively with an apparently inactive account?
dsr_about 1 hour ago
One would think that they could spontaneously offer him a hundred million dollars for it and solve the problem.

I half-suspect they threatened him and he stuck to his guns.

nerdsniper37 minutes ago
It's possible they wanted to offer that person convincing amounts of money and couldn't get ahold of them.
dawieabout 1 hour ago
It made me double check if it was a fake repo.
personjerry43 minutes ago
RIP Harvey
__loam41 minutes ago
Harvey was always an upstart in the legal tech industry. There's other companies that have a much better understanding of the market and compliance issues but you don't hear about them because nobody wants to talk about legal tech.
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arbirkabout 1 hour ago
Would use it if it wasn't supporting the space wanker
nozzlegear2 minutes ago
Who? There are several space wankers but I don't know of any tied to Anthropic.