Archive | The Agentic Lawyer

A Thumbs-Up Can Last Five Years

Jul 14, 2026

Rating a Claude or ChatGPT answer feels like grading the tool. On Anthropic's commercial products, that click is permission to keep the whole conversation and train on it. On OpenAI's, it depends on which product you are in and a setting most lawyers have never seen. The same click can be a disclosure decision - and the client was never asked.

Your AI Vendor Keeps a Copy. That Is Not the Problem.

Jul 9, 2026

An AI vendor's copy of a client trade secret, held under confidentiality terms, does not lose the secret. What loses it is an obligation that expires while the copy lives on, or a copy you cannot require the vendor to delete.

No Training Does Not Mean No Retention

Jun 30, 2026

Every enterprise AI tier promises not to train on your data. None of them promises not to keep it. Lawyers are treating the first as if it were the second.

Deletion Is Not Deletion

Jun 23, 2026

You can delete your chat history. You cannot delete the copy the provider kept - and that copy, while it lasts, is the one legal process can reach.

AI Did Not Break Privilege. There Was Never Privilege to Break.

Jun 18, 2026

Everyone is reading United States v. Heppner as the case where a chatbot destroyed attorney-client protection. Read it beside a quieter ruling from the same weeks that came out the other way, and the real lesson is one lawyers already knew.

Which Claude Are You Actually Using?

Jun 16, 2026

There is no single answer to what the tool does with your inputs. The terms depend on how you reach the model and which one you pick - and they changed three times while you were not looking.

An AI Model Disappeared Overnight. The Lesson Was Already True.

Jun 13, 2026

What the Fable shutdown actually teaches lawyers - and it is not the thing everyone is arguing about.

If You Used AI, Can You Prove Judgment Survived?

Jun 10, 2026

Competence is shifting from "is the output correct" to "can you show where your judgment took control." A short record closes most of the gap.

A Prompt Can Reveal a Client Without Naming Them.

Jun 9, 2026

For IP and patent lawyers especially, "redact the client's name" is not a confidentiality strategy. It barely touches the risk.

Same Failure, Better Suit.

Jun 8, 2026

The AI mistakes that get pro se litigants mocked are happening inside expert legal work too. They are just better dressed, which is what makes them dangerous.