U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, sitting in Washington, D.C., just last week determined that Google is a “monopolist.” (United States v. Google, Case No. 1:20- cv-03010-APM, Document 1033, Aug. 05, 2024, U.S.D.C. D. Columbia). The remedy that he chooses to address his holding will potentially have earthshaking consequences for the tech industry. Honestly, that’s all that this column has the capability of offering about that pivotal issue; but to ignore it when discussing another important issue in Google would have been silly.

So, let’s turn to the more limited, but important, question posed above. Indeed, asking the question that way—that is, “May an attorney make non-privileged emails privileged?”—the answer is obviously “no.” An email is simply privileged, or it isn’t. But what about when counsel tries to make virtually all his client’s emails—at least important emails—appear to be so? Is that ever appropriate?