Attorneys for people who allegedly mishandled classified information say the outcome of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton could be good news for their clients.

Though many see a double standard in FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to recommend charges against the former secretary of state who used a personal and unsecured email system for official business, others see possibilities.

Mark Zaid, a defense attorney for national security whistleblowers and people accused of mishandling secrets, says he plans to ask for “the Clinton deal” in the future.

And Zaid says he probably can get it.

In 2015, shortly after former CIA Director David Petraeus received a plea deal featuring probation and a fine for sharing highly classified information with his mistress Paula Broadwell, Zaid says he called the Justice Department on behalf of a client accused of taking classified records home.

“We absolutely got on the phone to the prosecutor and said, ‘We want the Petraeus sentence. We want the commensurate, parallel sentence.’ And we got it!” he says, winning a $5,000 fine and a short probation term instead of possible prison for a now-retired intelligence agency employee.

Zaid says if that case still were still pending, he probably could have gotten the client, who he refused to name and asked not be identified, the same deal as Clinton, as their “carelessness,” a term used by Comey to describe Clinton’s email practices, was similar.

“In some ways, [the Clinton and Petraeus cases] now create a glass ceiling and a glass floor,” Zaid says. “By Comey’s wording [about Clinton], now we have a floor as to what constitutes intent that deserves prosecution.”

Clinton did intentionally use a private and unsecured email system for her official business, but during his Tuesday speech Comey avoided the words “gross negligence,” which could qualify her for prosecution, instead calling her conduct "extremely careless.”

Comey said Clinton's email system featured more than 100 messages with classified information. He said foreign spies could have gained access, though the FBI found no evidence that happened. Unlike Petraeus, who received two years of probation and a $100,000 fine, Clinton was not accused of lying to the FBI, though she did publicly claim she had not sent or received classified information.

The argument that a free pass for Clinton should allow leniency for others soon will be tested in federal court as attorney Michael Bowe argues Marine Reserves Maj. Jason Brezler should not be separated from the military.

Brezler used a personal email account to send a classified report about an alleged child-raping, drug-dealing Afghan police official to a fellow Marine as a warning, two weeks before one of the man’s apparent rape victims murdered three Marines. He reportedly knew the document was classified, but felt its status may have changed with time.

Bowe intends to argue that Brezler deserves leniency and that his recommended punishment is arbitrary and capricious, particularly in light of Clinton's conduct. He expects a ruling this fall.

“We intend to cite the treatment of Secretary Clinton as one of the many -- and most egregious -- examples of how the severe treatment of Major Brezler was the very definition of an arbitrary and capricious double standard,” Bowe says.

He adds: “It is impossible to reconcile the commander-in chief’s statement [in April] that Secretary Clinton’s intentional act of setting up a secret, unsecured server on which rested the most sensitive classified information did not ‘detract from her excellent ability to carry out her duties’ with the completely opposite finding for Major Brezler based on an allegedly inadvertent mistake involving infinitely less sensitive and limited information.”

Whether Clinton’s non-punishment will have an effect on future Justice Department actions is a matter of dispute.

“I think what Director Comey said has no large implications for other criminal [defendants] in the future,” says Neal Katyal, a Georgetown University law professor.

“It is a truism that mens rea or criminal intent is needed to prosecute, and as the director said, no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute without it,” he says. “So I don't see any large implications for other investigations.”

Author and retired diplomat Peter Van Buren, who is not an attorney, says he also doubts much will change.

Van Buren was referred to the Justice Department for possible trial and forced out of the State Department in 2012, after he allegedly mishandled classified information. His offenses included linking to a publicly viewable WikiLeaks cable on his personal blog and including information he describes as innocuous non-secrets in a book he submitted for State Department pre-publication review.

“This indicates there really is no standard at all,” Van Buren says.

“My case is extremely minor, but the significance is it happened in the State Department while Hillary was doing whatever she was doing in the background,” he says.

Other recent cases involving classified information include the conviction and imprisonment of former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who gave contact information for a CIA employee to a reporter. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and spent nearly two years behind bars.

Former Naval reservist Bryan Nishimura, meanwhile, pleaded guilty last year to unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, receiving a $7,500 fine. His lawyer, William Portanova, said he was a "pack rat" who did not mean to break the law.

And there’s Arabic translator James Hitselberger, who was fired and criminally charged for printing two classified documents and attempting to leave a Bahrain naval base. He pleaded guilty in 2014 to unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents to spare himself a potentially lengthy prison sentence, maintaining he was innocent of purposeful wrongdoing.

Hitselberger offered an explanation similar to Clinton's justification for using a person email server: convenience. He wanted to read the documents at home.

Attorneys for Hitselberger, Kiriakou and Nishimura did not respond to requests for comment.

David Kendall, the lawyer who represented both Clinton and Petraeus, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Zaid says it’s important to keep in mind that there are relatively few criminal cases involving mishandling of classified documents and that choosy prosecutors "have a double standard every day they indict people"

But, he adds, one line uttered by Comey may become more significant with time.