Judge rules that AI created documents were not protected under Attorney-Client Privilege!

The ABAJournal.com reported that “A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that documents that a Texas financial services executive created using artificial intelligence sent to his attorney did not qualify for privilege.” The February 17, 2026 article entitled “AI-created documents sent to attorney aren't privileged, judge says” (https://tinyurl.com/3eyk6c9y) included this ruling from US District Judge, Jed S. Rakoff (Southern District of New York) in the case of U.S. v. Heppner, case number 1:25-cr-00503 regarding “…an April 6 trial of former Beneficient CEO Bradley Heppner”:

Heppner faces charges for looting publicly traded company GWG Holdings, which invested heavily in Beneficient, according to the story, and charges include fraud and lying to auditors.

Knowing that he was targeted by law enforcement, Heppner in 2025 used an AI tool to prepare 31 documents related to his legal case and shared them with the defense counsel from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan,…

The government then requested the court to not allow attorney-client privilege or consider the documents as protected work product, …

“I’m not seeing remotely any basis for any claim of attorney-client privilege,” said U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York.

Rakoff noted that the AI tool employed has a provision that any information inputted is not confidential, and users shouldn’t have expectations of privacy, according to the story.

Very interesting ruling about the use of Claude!