I highly recommend everyone actually read the opinion. It's such a thorough legal takedown of Heppner, you'll learn how the law works and why it doesn't apply to a lot of the made up cases in this thread:

TLDR:

- Claude told him IANAL

- Claude privacy policies say they "may disclose personal data to third parties in connection with claims, disputes, or litigation"

- Work product doctrine, does not apply in the same way to plaintiffs

- Lawyers did not direct him to use Claude (i.e. the laywers did not direct him to do research for the case using a specific tool)

My takeaway is that, as is, I should not do any work without a VPN or in plaintext. Everything else was up for grabs even before this case.

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asdfasgasdgasdg 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Is a VPN really going to help here? I guess if you can figure out a way to pay Claude anonymously. But if you are charged with a crime and your computer is siezed, and there is some way to discover your Claude account from the contents of your computer, then you will be up a creek either way.

My takeaway is: don't do crime, and if you must do crime, don't use AI in the commission of a crime, in a similar way as it is unwise for criminals to keep recordings of their own phone conversations or what have you (a surprisingly common habit for criminals!).

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randallsquared 5 hours ago | parent [-]

That's a great takeaway, but may not be practically achievable in the world where

> The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day.

-- https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp...

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gruez 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That claim by the way, is totally unsubstantiated, and the cases have very questionable applicability to the "average professional".

	▲	metalliqaz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I once saw a talk given by a lawyer on exactly this topic. It was a long time ago, unfortunately I won't be able to find it. Anyway, the takeaway is that there are plenty of Federal laws that are written in such a way that there is incredible room for interpretation by prosecutors. Vagueness and overbroad language to the point that indeed they can come up with some kind of crime pretty much any time they want to. On the other hand, that kind of thing would not only be enough to bring a case. They use that kind of power to enhance their case against people they know are real criminals. Of course, the more the Justice Department becomes captured by bad actors, the less this applies.

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asdfasgasdgasdg 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don’t think very many people charged with federal crimes are actually just innocent bystanders. So even if we grant that people are technically committing three felonies a day (which I don’t) I think the admonition can simply be read “don’t do crimes that a federal prosecutor might actually charge you with.”

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impossiblefork 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, but he's still using it to prepare his legal arguments and to understand the law.

The reason attorney-client communication is privileged is so that people won't interfere in people's preparation of their case, not because the lawyer is magic. The principled thing is for the courts to apply principles like this based on the principle.

	▲	asdfasgasdgasdg 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		According to the ruling’s citations, the purpose of the privilege is to provide protection for the mind of the advocate. If you’re not the advocate and you’re not talking to the advocate the privilege doesn’t apply. Should-bes in this case are imponderable to me but that appears to be what-is.