Glossary
Attorney-client privilege
Attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications between a lawyer and their client about seeking legal advice or services. A third party who is present, or a tool that handles the conversation, can put that protection at risk.
Updated October 17, 20264 cited facts, each traced to its source
Also called legal professional privilege.
Attorney-client privilege is the legal protection for confidential communications between a lawyer and a client made to get legal advice. The client holds the protection, which lets the client speak openly with the lawyer. It holds only while the conversation stays confidential.
The privilege covers confidential communications made to get legal advice
Cornell Law School's legal encyclopedia defines it this way: "Attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications between a lawyer and their client that relate to the client's seeking of legal advice or services" 1. The test is the purpose of the communication. A conversation that is not about seeking legal advice or services is not covered just because a lawyer took part in it.
A third party in the room can weaken confidentiality
Confidentiality is the condition that keeps the protection in place. Cornell says that "if a third party is present during the privileged communication, the confidentiality may be compromised unless that third party is essential to the attorney-client relationship" 2.
Courts have accepted some third parties. In United States v. Kovel, the Second Circuit held that an accountant's presence does not destroy the privilege where it is necessary, or at least highly useful, to the consultation between client and lawyer 3. The third party's role in the consultation decides the question, not the fact that they were present.
An AI tool can lack privilege, so check before you dictate client matters
The question now includes AI tools. On February 13, 2026, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York ruled that a non-attorney's communications with a generative AI platform were not protected by attorney-client privilege or work product 4. One district court ruling does not bind courts elsewhere, but it shows how a court can treat an AI conversation.
For dictation, a lawyer should know three things before using a cloud tool for client matters: where the audio is processed, who can access it, and whether the vendor keeps it. A zero data retention setting addresses the last question, and only within the vendor's stated scope.
Related terms and guides
- Zero data retention (ZDR) describes what a vendor agrees not to keep, which bears on confidentiality.
- Cloud dictation sends audio to a server, which raises the third-party question.
- Our guide to dictation for lawyers covers the bar opinions on reasonable efforts and the questions to ask a vendor.
- Questions: Does using cloud dictation waive attorney-client privilege? and Are conversations with an AI chatbot privileged?
- For how your data is handled in general, see voice data retention and the overview of speech to text privacy.
Evidence
Every number on this page, with where it comes from. Open a fact to see the exact words in its source.
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- 3.In United States v. Kovel, the Second Circuit said an accountant's presence does not destroy the privilege where it is necessary, or at least highly useful, to the consultation between client and lawyer.
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Federal Reporter, Second Series, 1961 · Original
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Related terms
- Speech to Text Privacy: Where Your Voice GoesThe topic this term belongs to
- All-party consentAll-party consent is a recording rule under which every participant in a conversation must agree before it can be recorded or intercepted. California, Florida and Maryland use it in their statutes, and it is stricter than one-party consent.
- Biometric dataBiometric data is personal data produced by technical processing of a person's physical, physiological or behavioral characteristics that allows or confirms who that person is. A voice recording becomes biometric data when it is processed to identify the speaker.
- Business associate agreement (BAA)A business associate agreement (BAA) is the written contract that HIPAA requires before a covered entity lets a vendor create, receive, maintain or transmit protected health information on its behalf. Dictation tools used in clinics often need one, and a BAA alone does not make a product compliant.
- False accept (accidental activation)A false accept, also called a false wake or accidental activation, is when a voice assistant or dictation feature starts listening or recording although the wake word was not said. Smart speakers have been measured to wake by accident, and that can capture speech the user did not mean to share.
- Federated learningFederated learning is a way to train one machine learning model on data spread across many devices. Each device computes an update from its own data, and only those updates are sent to a server, so the raw data does not have to be collected in one place.
- On-device speech recognitionOn-device speech recognition converts speech to text with a model that runs on your own computer or phone, so the audio does not need to be sent to a server. It is also called local, offline or on-device dictation.
- One-party consentOne-party consent is a recording rule under which a conversation can be recorded lawfully when one of its participants agrees, which is usually the person doing the recording. The US federal wiretap law uses this rule, and individual states may set stricter ones.
- Protected health information (PHI)Protected health information (PHI) is individually identifiable health information that HIPAA protects when it is held or sent in electronic or other form by a covered entity or its business associate. Patient names with diagnoses, in dictated notes or voice recordings, are PHI. It is also called ePHI when held electronically.
- Speaker verificationSpeaker verification is a voice biometric check in which a system accepts or rejects a claimed identity by comparing a voice with stored models of the person claimed. It is also called voice authentication, voice ID or voice biometrics.
- Special category data (GDPR)Special category data is the group of personal data that Article 9 of the GDPR bans organizations from processing unless a listed exception applies. It includes health data and biometric data used to identify a person, and a voice recording can fall into it when it is processed that way.
- Voice cloningVoice cloning is the use of a model trained on recordings of one person to generate new speech in that person's voice. Some products need only minutes of clear audio, and cloned voices have been used in fraud, so recordings of your voice carry a real risk.
- VoiceprintA voiceprint is a stored model of a person's voice, built from measurable features of their speech and used to recognize or verify that person. Illinois law lists voiceprints among biometric identifiers, and other vendors call the same idea a voice template or speaker model.