The short answer: no. But the case does have some important lessons for how you guide your clients.
When United States v. Heppner made headlines, reactions ranged from concerned to alarmed. Does consulting an AI chatbot destroy privilege? Is legal AI no longer safe to use? Do lawyers need to stop using these tools entirely?…

The operational bottleneck limiting law firm growth
Running a law firm today means managing far more than legal work. Beyond substantive matter work, your team juggles new client intake, appointment scheduling, payment follow-ups, status updates, and the steady stream of questions that clients expect answered.
Each of these tasks is manageable on its…

With artificial intelligence, legal professionals are getting much more done in a day. But for law firms that bill primarily by the hour, this may not bode well. As lawyers complete their work faster for clients, they log fewer billable hours, which means less revenue for the firm.
Due to this conflict between efficiency and…

Top AI use cases in law across the legal workflow
Here’s how AI supports lawyers in both the practice of law and the business of running a firm.…

What is shadow IT?
Shadow IT is software that’s used without any knowledge, approval, or oversight from a law firm’s IT experts. Broadly speaking, shadow IT includes software that is downloaded and installed on local hardware, as well as cloud-based tools that can be accessed by logging into a web browser. 
For example, individuals may…

What SB 574 requires: four considerations for lawyers using AI
The bill doesn’t ban AI use in legal practice. Instead, it clarifies that existing professional obligations (confidentiality, competence, accuracy, and fairness) still apply when using AI tools.
The bill defines generative artificial intelligence as an “artificial intelligence system that can generate derived synthetic content, including…