Privilege and Confidentiality Check

Privilege and Confidentiality Check

Purpose

Review draft legal work product for privilege and confidentiality risk. The skill identifies unnecessary disclosure of confidential client information, risky inclusion of privileged communications, missing privilege/work-product labels, anonymization needs, sensitive identifiers, and the need for a safer external-facing version.

This skill does not decide privilege law. It flags issues for attorney judgment.

Use When

• A draft may be sent outside the legal team, to a client, opposing party, regulator, court, vendor, or business stakeholder.
• A draft contains client names, employee names, addresses, account numbers, emails, sensitive facts, privileged communications, or attorney mental impressions.
• A matter workspace or output needs privilege/work-product labeling reviewed.
• The user asks for a redacted, anonymized, or external-facing version.

Required Inputs

• The draft to review.
• Intended recipient, distribution plan, and whether the output is internal or external.
• Any matter confidentiality instructions, client restrictions, protective order, NDA, or privilege-designation guidance.

If recipient and distribution plan are missing, flag that as a gate before external use.

Do Not Use When

• The task is to decide as a matter of law whether privilege applies.
• The user wants to disclose confidential information without attorney authorization.
• The draft is a reusable template or example containing real client information; stop and remove the real information.

Legal Safety Rules

• Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice.
• Follow core/confidentiality-and-privilege.md.
• Follow core/source-and-citation-discipline.md; do not invent legal authority, citations, quotations, facts, or deadlines.
• Do not decide privilege, waiver, common-interest, work-product, or confidentiality obligations. Flag them for attorney review.
• Do not include unnecessary sensitive details in the check report.
• Do not create reusable examples with real client or matter facts.

Workflow

1. Confirm destination. Identify recipient, audience, system, channel, and whether the draft is internal, client-facing, third-party-facing, court-facing, or regulator-facing.
2. Scan for sensitive information. Flag names, addresses, emails, account numbers, personal data, employee facts, medical facts, trade secrets, settlement positions, litigation strategy, and confidential business information.
3. Scan for privileged material. Flag attorney-client communications, legal advice summaries, attorney mental impressions, work-product strategy, and internal legal assessments.
4. Check labels. Confirm whether a privilege/work-product/confidentiality legend is present and appropriate for attorney review.
5. Check necessity. Determine whether each sensitive fact is necessary for the intended recipient and use.
6. Recommend redaction or anonymization. Propose neutral labels, summary references, redactions, or a safer external-facing version.
7. Identify waiver/disclosure risks. Flag distribution to third parties, mixed business/legal communications, and content that may need protective-order or confidentiality review.
8. Prepare safer version. If possible, draft a safer external-facing version that removes or neutralizes sensitive detail without changing substance. If not possible, state what attorney direction is needed.

Output Format

Deliver:

1. Draft Label — "Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice."

2. Recipient and Distribution Assumptions

3. Risk Table

   Location	Sensitive item	Risk type	Why it matters	Recommended treatment

4. Privilege/Work-Product Label Review

5. Redaction and Anonymization Plan

6. Safer External-Facing Version — Or a statement that attorney direction is required before a safer version can be drafted.

7. Attorney Verification Checklist

Attorney Verification Checklist

• Recipient and distribution channel are approved for the matter.
• Privilege/work-product/confidentiality label is appropriate.
• No confidential client information is disclosed unnecessarily.
• Privileged communications and attorney mental impressions are handled appropriately.
• Sensitive identifiers are redacted or anonymized where appropriate.
• External-facing version has been reviewed before transmission.
• Any waiver, protective-order, NDA, or confidentiality obligation has been assessed by counsel.