Privilege is a rule of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), which provides an exception to compelled testimony under discovery. The concept of privilege, primarily between an attorney and his client, has ingenerated within the U.S. legal system to protect client confidentiality. This protection is often exercised by parties during legal proceedings and has been accorded recognition by courts on various occasions.

As law and discovery have evolved over the years, privileged information and the modes in which it exists has taken up diverse forms. From being stored in folders and file cabinets, it now exists mostly as word documents, emails, and other forms of electronically stored information (ESI). And, litigators increasingly find themselves having to respond to subpoena requests for such ESI.

While protection of privilege is of utmost importance and the waiver of which can be of severe detriment to a case, it often gets ignored. This is because with the advent of e-discovery and growing volume of data, the costs associated with discovery have increased manifold. In order to alleviate these costs and meet strict production deadlines, litigants are often found forgoing privilege review, asserting broad claims, and skimping on necessary steps, which leads to extended motions, inadvertent disclosures and increased scrutiny.