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This isn’t really attorney client privilege and would much more likely fall under the work-product doctrine [1,2], where documents prepared for the purpose of future litigation are protected from discovery and could be considered analogous to attorney-client privilege (but is actually much more broadly defined than attorney-client privilege[4]). Google can and does provide emails and documents under subpoena, but courts have ruled multiple times that emails, google docs, etc. were protected under work product doctrine or attorney-client privilege. Just because a third party has it and is willing to give it over does not negate privilege. The “shared with Anthropic” argument does not hold up to precedent when SaaS is used. Even if opposing counsel is able to obtain discovery on a work-product, only fact based products, not opinion based are allowed. In other words, the court is supposed to remove anything related to “mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representative of a party concerning the litigation” [3]. For conversations with AI about how to conduct your case, that would exclude basically everything since it is an opinion work-product, not a fact work product. A fact based work-product would be things like “statements or interviews of now deceased witnesses, photographs or video of an accident scene taken at the time of the accident”[4]. If I collected research and wrote down possible legal strategies in a Google Doc in preparation for meeting a new attorney, that would be protected. But if I do the exact same thing in google Gemini, it isn’t because Gemini “is not a lawyer” [5]? He ruled “Heppner did not [use Claude] at the suggestion or direction of counsel [5]” but as I just said, you are protected when self-initiating note taking before meeting with an attorney. The attorney does not have to direct you to do it for it to be protected. Honestly this really doesn’t read as solid reasoning underpinning the ruling at all. [1] https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/the-work-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-product_doctrine [3] https://coxlawflorida.com/florida-rules-of-civil-procedure/r... [4] https://tenthings.blog/2019/06/05/ten-things-a-primer-on-the... [5] The court docs with Judge ruling |