Attorney-Client Privilege

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Attorney-Client Privilege

    The Attorney-Client Privilege functionality in ServiceNow enables legal fulfillers to designate legal requests and matters as privileged and confidential. This feature restricts access to authorized stakeholders, adds confidentiality banners to communications, and maintains an audit trail of documents to protect sensitive legal information. It applies specifically to legal requests and matters in certain states but is not available for legal contract requests.

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    Key Features

    • Privileged and Confidential Marking: Legal fulfillers can mark legal requests (in Assigned or Work in Progress states) and legal matters as privileged and confidential, restricting access and collaboration accordingly.
    • Access Control: When privilege is enabled on a legal request, assignment group permissions automatically update to “No access” to prevent unauthorized viewing.
    • Visual Indicators: Privileged and confidential requests show a flag in the request header and display attachment permissions in a related list for easy identification.
    • Email Confidentiality Markers: All email notifications related to privileged requests—including system-generated and fulfiller-initiated emails—contain confidentiality markers to meet legal requirements.
    • Stakeholder Change Notifications: Changes to collaborators, watchlists, or fulfiller assignments on privileged requests trigger email notifications to all stakeholders, ensuring transparency with confidentiality safeguards.
    • Promotion to Legal Matter: Legal requests can be promoted to new or existing legal matters. The privileged status of the matter and request are tracked independently and can be changed separately.

    Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers

    • Enable your legal team to securely manage privileged communications within the legal service delivery process.
    • Protect sensitive information by restricting access and applying confidentiality banners, helping maintain compliance and confidentiality standards.
    • Maintain clear audit trails and automated notifications to ensure all authorized parties are informed of changes without compromising privilege.
    • Understand that privilege status is managed separately for requests and matters, providing flexibility in handling legal workflows.
    • Note that this functionality does not apply to legal contract requests, such as NDAs or third-party contracts managed via Contract Management Pro.

    Attorney Client Privilege functionality enables legal fulfiller to designate legal requests as privileged and confidential. It restricts access to authorized stakeholders, marks communications with confidentiality banners, and maintains a document audit trail to help you protect sensitive legal communications.

    Attorney Client Privilege applies to following:

    • Legal Request: Legal fulfillers can mark legal requests as privileged and confidential, when the request is in Assigned or Work in Progress state. The system enforces access control, adds confidentiality markers to emails, and restricts collaboration to authorized stakeholders.
    • Legal Matter: Legal fulfillers and matter owners can independently mark or unmark individual matters as privileged and confidential, provided the matter is in the Assigned or Work in Progress state.
    The Attorney Client Privilege feature is not available for legal contracts requests. Example: Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA) and Third-party Contracts submitted using Contract Management Pro for Legal Service Delivery application.

    Assignment group permission changes

    When Privilege and Confidential is enabled on a legal request, the system automatically updates the assignment group permission to No access.

    Indicators of a privileged and confidential marked request

    You can identify a privileged and confidential request by following UI elements.
    • Privileged and Confidential flag: Displayed in the secondary header of the request when it is marked as privileged and confidential.
    • Privileged document access related list to display the permission of each attachment.

    Identify privileged and confidential request

    Email notifications

    Email notifications generated for Privileged and Confidential marked requests, contain confidentiality markers to comply with legal requirements. This applies to both system-generated notifications and fulfiller-initiated outbound emails.

    Stakeholder change notifications

    When the collaborator list, watchlist, or fulfiller assignment is modified for a privileged and confidential request, the system sends email notifications to the requester, fulfiller, and collaborators. Notifications are triggered when:

    • A new collaborator is added to the request.
    • A new watchlist entry is added.
    • The fulfiller assignment changes.

    All notifications for privileged and confidential requests include the confidentiality markers.

    Promote legal request to legal matter

    You can promote a legal request to legal matter by creating a new matter or adding to an existing matter.

    • When legal request is promoted by creating a new matter, the Privileged and Confidential status of the created matter is dependent on the Privileged and Confidential status of the request. You can change the status later.
    • When legal request is promoted by adding to an existing matter, the Privileged and Confidential status of the existing matter is retained irrespective of the Privileged and Confidential status of the request.

    The Privileged and Confidential status of a legal request and its associated matter are tracked independently. Changing the Privileged and Confidential status of a request does not automatically change the Privileged and Confidential status of the associated matter, and vice versa.