- Keep your legal stuff away from AI: ChatGPT is great for everyday questions, but don’t use it to look up information about your injury case.
- It’s not private: Sharing details with a public AI means you lose your expectation of privacy because you’re handing info over to third-party companies.
- No attorney-client privilege: Chatting with an AI about legal strategies doesn’t protect your conversation the way talking to a real lawyer does. (Privilege requires a recognized legal relationship with an attorney bound by professional confidentiality obligations, which an AI algorithm does not possess.)
- Opposing counsel can get it: Courts treat AI search history like emails or texts, meaning opposing lawyers can legally request it during discovery, and authorities can subpoena the providers for logs.
- Consult a professional instead: The team at Rizk Law is here to answer your questions—and unlike an AI, those conversations are actually protected by attorney-client privilege.
The Why: ChatGPT is Public
- Open (Public) AI: Tools like standard public versions of ChatGPT ingest user inputs to train models and store data on third-party servers, where it lacks legal privilege and is easily subpoenaed or requested in discovery.
- Captive or Closed AI: These are secured, enterprise-grade AI systems deployed within private, encrypted corporate or law firm environments. They typically do not use client inputs for public model training and restrict external access, offering significantly higher data security—though they still do not create formal attorney-client privilege on their own.
