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AI Tools and Your Case

Conversations with AI chat tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot are likely discoverable. That means the other side may be able to obtain them and use them against you. Keep your case out of these tools, do not delete conversations that already exist, and bring your questions to us.

AI chat tools feel private. You are alone with a screen, the tool is patient, and it answers at 2:00 a.m. when no one else will. Legally, those conversations work very differently from a conversation with your lawyer.

When you talk with us, the attorney-client privilege generally keeps that conversation confidential. When you type into an AI tool, you are sending your words to a technology company that stores them on its servers under terms of service most people never read. Those terms often allow the company to keep your conversations, use them to train its systems, and hand them over to third parties, including government agencies.

What courts have said

In February 2026, a federal judge in New York ruled that a person's conversations with an AI chat tool about his own legal case were protected by neither the attorney-client privilege nor the work-product doctrine. The government was allowed to read all of them. The court reasoned that:

  • An AI tool is not a lawyer, so the attorney-client privilege cannot apply to a conversation with it.
  • The tool's privacy policy told users their conversations could be stored and disclosed, so the person could not reasonably expect confidentiality.
  • Giving the AI-generated documents to his lawyers afterward did not make them privileged.

The same court went further. Some of what the person typed came from advice his lawyers had given him. The court said that by sharing that advice with the AI tool, he waived the privilege, the same as if he had repeated it to any other outsider.

Other courts have reached more protective results in some situations, especially for people representing themselves without a lawyer. The law is unsettled, and no court in Minnesota has decided the question yet. Because protection cannot be promised, the safe assumption is that anything you type into an AI tool could be read by the other side.

What this means for you

In an employment case, discoverable AI conversations can hurt you in several ways:

  • Your account of events in a chat may differ from your sworn testimony, even in small ways. The other side will use any difference to attack your credibility.
  • Venting, speculation, or exaggeration typed late at night can be read aloud at a deposition.
  • Questions you asked about damages, settlement, or other jobs can be used to argue about the value of your claim.
  • If you pasted in our emails or letters, you may have handed our legal strategy to your former employer.

Rules to follow

Keep your case out of AI tools. Do not describe your job, your employer, your coworkers, your termination, your medical situation as it relates to your case, or your legal claims to any AI chat tool. This includes ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI, Grok, and AI features built into email, phones, and word processors.

Do not paste or upload anything from us. That includes emails, letters, drafts, settlement figures, and anything from a court filing marked confidential. Sharing our advice with an AI tool can waive the privilege that protects it.

Do not upload documents from your employer. Beyond the privilege problem, many employees signed confidentiality agreements, and documents produced in a lawsuit are often covered by a protective order. Uploading them to an AI tool can create a separate legal problem for you.

Be careful with work devices and work accounts. If you still have access to an employer-provided computer, phone, email, or AI tool (such as a company Copilot account), assume your employer can see everything you do on it. Do not use it for anything related to your case.

Turn off AI notetakers on calls with us. Some phone and video apps record and transcribe calls automatically. Disable those features, or let us know so we can address it, before speaking with your legal team.

If you have already used an AI tool

This is common, and it is fixable. Here is what to do:

  1. Do not delete anything. Your litigation hold notice requires you to preserve evidence, and AI conversations count. Deleting them can lead to court sanctions against you, and deleting usually does not even erase them: AI companies keep copies for 30 days or longer under their own policies, and courts have ordered companies to preserve conversations users thought were gone.
  2. Stop adding to them. Do not continue those conversations or start new ones about your case.
  3. Tell your case team. We will ask which tool you used, which account, roughly when, and what you entered. Be candid. We can only protect you from problems we know about.

Common questions

Can I use AI for things unrelated to my case? Yes. Recipes, travel planning, and everyday tasks are fine. The rule applies to your case, your employer, your coworkers, and your legal situation.

What about using AI to help with my job search? Generic help with a resume or cover letter is generally fine. Do not describe why you left your last job, your lawsuit, or anything about your former employer.

What if I use a "temporary" or "incognito" chat, or turn off chat history? Those settings reduce what the company keeps. They do not create legal privilege, and the company may still retain conversations for a period of time. Treat them the same as any other AI conversation.

I just want to understand my case better.  Where should I go? Ask us. Your case team can answer questions, explain the process, and walk you through what comes next. That conversation is protected, and the answers will be accurate for your specific case, which an AI tool cannot promise.