An aggressive litigant might claim the AI was essential to assist the founder in communicating with counsel, and thus similarly protected to some degree. This is coming up in search results as an "agency" rule and the founder still would need reasonable expectations of confidentiality from Claude, etc.

There are legal research AI's and tools out there, which sophisticated non lawyers probably use. Discovery rules haven't been a deterrent because of the companion work product doctrine which is an adjuct to the American Rule-- you generally can't use discovery to extract legal research from the other side.

When lawyers speak of the American Rule, we mean the concept that each party pays for its own legal fees unless that default is changed by statute, contract, or court action (for example, sanctions) — as opposed to the English Rule, under which the losing party generally must pay the prevailing party's fees.

Even in most American jurisdictions, the losing party ends up paying many of the prevailing party's costs (deposition transcripts, expert costs, etc.).