Many people now ask an AI tool about their divorce before they talk to an attorney, and those chats carry risks most users never consider.
Key Takeaways:
- AI chats generally aren’t protected by attorney-client privilege.
- Pennsylvania allows discovery in property and alimony claims.
- General AI tools can misstate Pennsylvania divorce rules.
It’s 1 a.m., your spouse is asleep down the hall, and you’re in the dark peering at a bright screen, asking a chatbot whether you’ll lose the house. You also want to know whether you can move the kids closer to your mother, whether you can open your own bank account, and, oh yeah… what happens to the business?
The answers come back in seconds and sound so certain and professional. They’re also stored on a company’s servers, which means your spouse’s attorneys can ask to see them.
What a Federal Judge Said About AI Chats and Privilege
In February 2026, Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in United States v. Heppner. He held that 31 documents a defendant created with a consumer version of the AI tool Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine. The defendant had used the tool on his own to prepare for conversations with his attorneys and later shared the results with them. That didn’t help.
The court gave three main reasons:
- An AI tool isn’t an attorney, so talking to it isn’t a conversation with counsel.
- The tool’s terms allowed the company to access and disclose what users typed, so the chats weren’t confidential.
- The defendant’s attorneys hadn’t directed him to use it.
One detail matters most for anyone going through a divorce. The defendant had typed information his attorneys told him into the chatbot. The court found that sharing it with a third party could waive privilege over those original attorney conversations too.
Heppner is a federal criminal case from New York, so it doesn’t bind a Lehigh County or Montgomery County judge. It does apply the same basic privilege principles Pennsylvania courts use. Your conversations with your attorney are protected because they’re confidential, and sharing them with an outside party can end that protection.
How AI Conversations Could Come Up in a Pennsylvania Divorce
Pennsylvania allows formal discovery without first asking the court for permission in claims for alimony, equitable distribution, counsel fees, and complex support. In simple custody and support cases, discovery generally needs a court order. Either way, the other spouse’s attorney can ask what you’ve written about the case, and that request can reach beyond texts and emails.
In practice, that request usually goes to you. You may be asked to produce your chat history, screenshots, or exported conversations that touch on the marriage, the children, or the finances.
A few kinds of chats would be especially uncomfortable to see read aloud at a hearing:
- Questions about moving money into another account before filing, or how to make a business look less profitable
- A description of your own drinking, temper, or a night you’d rather forget
- Questions about how to keep your spouse from seeing the children
- Asset figures that don’t match what you later list on your sworn property inventory
That last one comes up most in cases with significant assets. If you’re dividing a business, a pension, or investment accounts, our article on high-asset divorce explains why consistent numbers matter from the first filing.
The same risks run the other way. If your spouse has been using an AI tool to plan the divorce, your attorney may be able to ask about it.
Where Chatbots Get Pennsylvania Divorce Law Wrong
General-purpose AI tools learn from material written about every state, and Pennsylvania’s rules differ from many of them. Common mistakes include:
- Property split 50/50. Pennsylvania uses equitable distribution. It divides marital property fairly based on factors such as income, earning ability, and the length of the marriage.
- A presumption of 50/50 custody. Pennsylvania has no automatic custody split. Judges weigh the best-interest factors in the custody statute, and the child’s safety comes first.
- Mixing up support types. Spousal support, alimony pendente lite (APL), and alimony are three different things with different timing and rules. Chatbots often treat them as one.
- Waiting periods from other states. A mutual consent divorce in Pennsylvania can be finalized 90 days after the complaint is served. Answers built on another state’s timeline can lead to bad planning.
Child and spousal support are also easy to confuse. Our post on alimony vs. child support walks through the differences in plain language.
Custody Cases and the Messages AI Helps You Write
Some parents use AI to draft texts to their co-parent, especially when every exchange feels tense. A calmer message can help. The words you send are still yours once they’re in your co-parent’s phone, and a judge may read them.
Pennsylvania judges look at how the parents communicate and which parent is more likely to encourage the child’s relationship with the other parent. Our post on what judges look for in custody cases covers those factors in more detail.
If you use AI to soften a message, read it before you send it and make sure it says what you mean in your own voice.
When communication between parents has broken down, our firm recommends co-parent counseling in almost every custody case. A counselor who knows your family can help you work through hard conversations, and the habits you build there tend to show up in your texts.
Safer Ways to Use AI While Your Case Is Open
AI tools can still be useful during a divorce if you keep case details out of them. Lower-risk uses include:
- Learning general terms before a meeting, such as what “marital property” or “legal custody” means
- Building a monthly budget from your own numbers, without names or account details, to support a living expenses chart
- Writing out general questions to bring to your attorney
Before using any tool, check its privacy settings and how long it keeps your chat history. Some consumer AI products save conversations by default.
Some steps carry more risk. Don’t paste emails or advice from your attorney into a chatbot. Don’t upload financial statements, custody evaluations, or court filings. Don’t ask an AI tool to plan a strategy against your spouse.
If you’ve already discussed your case with a chatbot, tell your attorney before you delete anything. Deleting material once a case has started can create its own problems, and your attorney can tell you how to handle what already exists.
Bring Your Questions to an Attorney Who Will Explain Every Step
A chatbot can’t keep your conversations confidential, and it doesn’t know the Lehigh County courthouse or your children’s routines. At Crosson & Richetti, LLC, our attorneys bring more than 150 years of combined experience to Lehigh Valley divorce and custody cases. We take the time to explain how Pennsylvania law applies to your situation.
If you’re starting a Pennsylvania divorce and have been looking for answers online, schedule your consultation and bring those questions with you.
