BayneLaw has taken the important position to announce to all clients that persons and companies should not use publically-avaialble AI tools for any private commercial or legal work directly. Commercial and consumer AI platforms (such as ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, and similar services) do not create confidential attorney communications and therefore are not protected by the attorney-client privilege and may not be subject to ordinary privacy laws.
Recent federal court decisions have required litigants to disclose their AI conversations and outputs concerning legal matters, because no attorney-client relationship exists with the platform and there is generally no reasonable expectation of confidentiality under the applicable terms of service. Courts have distinguished situations in which AI is used directly by counsel as part of privileged representation (which may receive work-product protection in appropriate circumstances).
To protect the confidentiality of your legal matters, we are directing all of our clients to please refrain from inputting any communication from this office, case-specific details, strategy, or other sensitive information into any public or consumer-grade AI tool. To do so risks the release of such otherwise privileged and confidential information to third parties, including adversarial parties or competitors. Please contact BayneLaw with any questions or concerns you may have about the appropriate and protected use of AI tools.