The Danger of Using AI for Divorce: Why Your Chatbot History Is Not Private

Along with the proliferation Do It Yourself online family law sites, people have now started using ChatGPT/Claude, etc. as a go to for advice and forms and more. A federal judge just issued an opinion that should give everyone – and we mean everyone – deep concerns about even considering this.

United States v. Heppner: The Landmark Ruling on AI and Legal Privilege

In United States v. Heppner, decided last week, Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that a defendant’s conversations with a consumer generative-AI tool (in this case Anthropic’s Claude) are not protected by attorney-client privilege and are not protected as work product. Heppner, the defendant in a fraud case, had used AI to analyze his situation and draft ‘strategy’ after receiving a subpoena. The court’s view was direct:

An AI tool is not a lawyer. * Nothing you tell it is protected by attorney-client privilege.
It is not “work-product” because the materials weren’t prepared by an attorney or at an attorney’s direction.

The judge’s ruling left no wiggle room whatsoever. That’s a criminal case. I have to believe the family-law version is going to be a lot more common.

The Risks of DIY Divorce Sites and AI Assistants

AI users searching for divorce help – or using DIY sites with AI capabilities – typically go all in until they run into an issue that cannot be ‘AIed’ away. Users draft timelines. They list accounts. They describe:

What happened on ‘that’ trip.
What was said in the kitchen.
Which texts were deleted.
What they suspect about money.
What they know about the affair.
Why they’re scared about custody.

The AI will not stop them; it will encourage them to give more. DIY divorce sites and “helpful” online tools have been nudging people in this direction for a while. Some are even marketing AI assistants as a “starting point” for divorce questions. A lot of them say comforting things about privacy. The Heppner ruling is a reminder that “privacy” and “privilege” are very, very different things.

Why Chatbots Are Considered Third Parties in Discovery

Attorney-client privilege is a narrow, specific protection for confidential communications between a client and a lawyer for the purpose of legal advice. A chatbot is a third party. Even if it feels like a private conversation, it is most emphatically not.

If you want to see how this can go sideways in family court, you don’t need imagination. You only need discovery. Opposing counsel asks for your notes, drafts, “communications with third parties,” and anything you used to “prepare” your position.

If you have been using consumer AI tools like a diary, you’ve potentially created a neat, time-stamped record of:

Your legal strategy.
Your emotional fears.
Your leverage points.
Claims you planned to make.
Information you hoped nobody would ask about.

Waiving Privilege: How Pasting Legal Advice Can Ruin Your Case

In Heppner, prosecutors fought for those AI documents and got them. Family litigation is different, but the basic mechanics of discoverability and waiver are very similar.

There’s also a second, quieter problem: people often paste into AI the very thing they most need protected—what their lawyer told them. Repeating legal advice into a public AI tool will waive the privilege that originally attached to that advice.

It’s the most natural thing in the world to do when you’re trying to understand your own case:

You paraphrase your lawyer.
You ask the bot to “explain it.”
You accidentally build a discovery record out of privileged conversations.

The New Rule for Using AI in Family Law

None of this means “never use AI.” It means don’t treat AI like a locked conference room.

Safe uses for AI in divorce:

Generic terminology and definitions.
Understanding the general legal process.
Checklists you could safely print on a billboard.

What to NEVER share with an AI tool:

Workshopping your specific facts.
Parenting plan strategies.
Your settlement posture.
The financial story you have to live with under oath.

The old rule in divorce was: don’t put anything in writing you’d be embarrassed to see on a courtroom screen. The new rule is: don’t put anything in an AI chat you’d be embarrassed to see on a courtroom screen.

Questions? Talk to Indigo Family Law.