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Claude for Legal

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Re: Claude for Legal

#11

Post by bryant »

droidjj wrote: post #7

As a lawyer, I'm excited about this, but there are two roadblocks that I'm not sure how Anthropic will navigate: (1) For non-lawyers who use these skills/connectors/whatchamacallits to try to get legal advice, their communications are not protected by attorney-client privilege. This will absolutely bite some people in the ass. (2) If a lawyer uses this with confidential client information (which, to the uninitiated,…

Citation for #1 - https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2026/03/united-states-v-he...

> Judge Rakoff of the Southern District of New York — addressing “a question of first impression nationwide” — ruled that written exchanges between a criminal defendant and generative AI platform Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.

Much more to it than this one-liner that I pulled out, but safe to say, don't rely on or put your legal defense etc. (or elements of it) into AI unless you want it discovered.

(not a lawyer, unlike OP, who might be able to refine what I highlighted with more precision)

Re: Claude for Legal

#13

Post by SkyPuncher »

droidjj wrote: post #7

As a lawyer, I'm excited about this, but there are two roadblocks that I'm not sure how Anthropic will navigate: (1) For non-lawyers who use these skills/connectors/whatchamacallits to try to get legal advice, their communications are not protected by attorney-client privilege. This will absolutely bite some people in the ass. (2) If a lawyer uses this with confidential client information (which, to the uninitiated,…

For #2, I’d expect you’d use this through an organization/business account that has data retention turned off by default.

Re: Claude for Legal

#14

Post by dsr_ »

ares623 wrote: post #4

Does anyone find it weird that Anthropic's Github org is `anthropics` (with an 's') and the `anthropic` username is owned by some random dude in Australia? Imagine the shenanigans someone can achieve with that user.

One would think that they could spontaneously offer him a hundred million dollars for it and solve the problem.

I half-suspect they threatened him and he stuck to his guns.

Re: Claude for Legal

#17

Post by __loam »

personjerry wrote: post #15

RIP Harvey

Harvey was always an upstart in the legal tech industry. There's other companies that have a much better understanding of the market and compliance issues but you don't hear about them because nobody wants to talk about legal tech.

Re: Claude for Legal

#18

Post by nerdsniper »

droidjj wrote: post #7

As a lawyer, I'm excited about this, but there are two roadblocks that I'm not sure how Anthropic will navigate: (1) For non-lawyers who use these skills/connectors/whatchamacallits to try to get legal advice, their communications are not protected by attorney-client privilege. This will absolutely bite some people in the ass. (2) If a lawyer uses this with confidential client information (which, to the uninitiated,…

For (1) it's so wild to me that if I pay a lawyer, they can run the same queries on these tools and they are protected by attorney-client privilege, but if I do it to help me prepare my defense, then the exact same queries would be subject to subpoena/discovery.

Does anyone know if there exists any OPSEC procedure for me to use third party tools like this for my own concerning legal questions that is both ethical and allows me to be confident that my interactions won't land in discovery documents?

Re: Claude for Legal

#19

Post by gosub100 »

pawelkomarnicki wrote: post #6

It will be hilarious to see this one play out because ChatGPT and Perplexity already do wonders for small-claim issues like tenancy laws, various personal letters, etc.

I would love this for poor people to fight giant corporations via 'lawfare'. It's largely unethical (just like many corporations) but just knowing how to file junk lawsuits that cost corporations millions to fight would be nice.

I dont mean 'frivolous' like prisoners who file pro-se about their ice cream melting [1], but a level or two above that , that costs time and money to produce records and testimony to defend, even if nary a dime is paid out. Basically ask GPT to figure out the terms and theories to file to get your lawsuit accepted, and done by poor people who cannot afford to post $ or repay if they lose. aka "asymmetric warfare" that benefits the little guy, just like the kind private equity or other terrible corporations wield against the poor via"mandatory arbitration" clauses or damages caps and similar rules that always benefit corporations.

1. https://www.deseret.com/1994/3/21/19098386/melted-ice-cream-...

Re: Claude for Legal

#20

Post by nerdsniper »

dsr_ wrote: post #14
ares623 wrote: post #4

Does anyone find it weird that Anthropic's Github org is `anthropics` (with an 's') and the `anthropic` username is owned by some random dude in Australia? Imagine the shenanigans someone can achieve with that user.

One would think that they could spontaneously offer him a hundred million dollars for it and solve the problem. I half-suspect they threatened him and he stuck to his guns.

It's possible they wanted to offer that person convincing amounts of money and couldn't get ahold of them.
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