Privilege review is the process of examining documents in an e-discovery collection to identify and withhold materials protected by attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine, or other applicable privileges before production to opposing parties.
Last reviewed: 2026/05/19
Attorney-client privilege is the legal doctrine that protects confidential communications between a lawyer and client made for the purpose of seeking or providing legal advice, shielding those communications from compelled disclosure in legal proceedings.
Legal PracticeAI-assisted discovery uses artificial intelligence to manage collection, processing, review, and production of electronically stored information in litigation — dramatically reducing per-document review costs through technology-assisted review, predictive coding, and generative AI overlays.
CapabilityE-discovery (electronic discovery) is the process of identifying, preserving, collecting, reviewing, and producing electronically stored information in response to litigation, investigations, or regulatory demands.
Legal PracticeA privilege log is a document produced in discovery that identifies each document withheld from production on grounds of privilege, describing the document without disclosing privileged content, enabling the opposing party to assess the validity of the privilege claim.
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Last reviewed: 2026/05/19. Definitions are written by the LawyerAI Editorial team. Commercial relationships are disclosed and do not determine editorial scores or conclusions. See our Sponsorship & Affiliate Disclosure.
Privilege review is the process of examining documents in an e-discovery collection to identify and withhold materials protected by attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine, or other applicable privileges before production to opposing parties.
Inadvertent production of privileged documents is a serious risk in document-intensive litigation. Producing a communication between a client and counsel destroys the privilege as to that specific document and, in some jurisdictions and circumstances, can trigger broader waiver affecting related materials. The consequences can include disqualification motions, loss of litigation strategy, and significant attorney-client relationship damage.
Privilege review is inherently human work at its core — determining whether a document reflects legal advice sought or given, whether it was prepared in anticipation of litigation, and whether privilege has been waived requires legal judgment that AI tools can assist but not replace.
In large matters, however, the volume of documents requiring privilege review can be enormous. AI-assisted tools allow the review to focus human attention where privilege questions are genuinely close. Documents clearly not involving attorneys, legal advice, or litigation preparation can be cleared quickly by AI classification, concentrating attorney review time on the genuinely ambiguous items.
Inadvertent production is addressed in FRCP 26(b)(5)(B) and FRE 502, which provide some procedural protection for clawback, but prevention remains far preferable to attempting to remedy production after it occurs.
Privilege review AI applies machine learning to identify documents likely to contain privileged communications. Effective tools use multiple signals: presence of attorney email addresses, language patterns associated with legal advice, document metadata, and conceptual similarity to confirmed privilege examples from the seed review.
Most major e-discovery platforms — including Relativity AI and Everlaw — include privilege detection features that flag documents as potentially privileged, allowing reviewers to concentrate their work. The AI classification is not a determination of privilege; it is a triage mechanism that prioritizes attorney review time.
Some tools offer "privilege first" review workflows where all documents touching attorney-client communications are identified and reviewed before the broader relevance review proceeds, ensuring privileged material is not inadvertently included in a relevance production batch.
Quality control after privilege review should include checking the production set for attorney email addresses and attorney-document patterns that may indicate missed privilege documents — a step that AI tools can automate.