The recent explosion of AI use has made legal analysis available to everyone. Clients and litigants who formerly had to rely on their attorneys for virtually all their legal analysis now may query an AI platform and obtain some fairly accurate information on their own. This access may undermine the long-established doctrines of attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product doctrine.
The legal doctrine of attorney-client privilege protects communications between a client and their attorney from being disclosed to third parties or compelled in evidence in legal proceedings. It is one of the most fundamental privileges in common law. The protection extends to all forms of communication between an attorney and their client when the client is seeking legal counsel, with certain exceptions: communications made in furtherance of a crime or fraud, information about a fact in communication that exists independently, and business advice as opposed to legal advice. Importantly,
