In this episode, Technology Partner Tom Maasland is joined by Senior Associate Oliver Sutton from our Litigation team to examine how the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting the application of legal privilege.
[01:20] Oliver outlines the three most common forms of legal privilege encountered in practice: solicitor client privilege, litigation privilege, and privilege for settlement negotiations, explaining the fundamental interplay with confidentiality.
[02:58] Oliver discusses both intentional and inadvertent waiver of legal privilege, including disclosures made during litigation, information sharing with third parties, and accidental disclosures through emails or document handling errors.
[04:49] Tom and Oliver then consider whether inputting privileged material into AI models can amount to a waiver of legal privilege. Oliver notes that while the issue is ultimately fact-dependent, there are key differences between inputs into public AI tools versus enterprise grade AI platforms that are likely to be relevant in this setting.
[06:16] They discuss recent examples illustrating how AI usage can expose confidential information, including instances where public AI chat data became searchable online, highlighting the real and practical risks for legal teams
[07:40] Oliver considers whether AI prompts and responses could be discoverable under the High Court Rules.
[11:00] Lastly, they discuss various practical considerations for businesses in the adoption and use of AI tools in a legal context, highlighting the importance of enterprise grade AI, carefully reviewing terms and conditions, taking a privacy by design approach, and implementing strong AI governance.
Information in this episode is accurate as at, 19 January 2026.
Please contact Tom Maasland, Oliver Sutton or our Litigation team if you need legal advice and guidance on any of the topics discussed in the episode.
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