Attorney Client Privilege

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

    Attorney Client Privilege in ServiceNow allows legal fulfillers and matter owners to designate legal matters and requests asprivileged and confidential. This feature restricts access to authorized stakeholders, adds confidentiality markers to communications, and maintains an audit trail to protect sensitive legal information.

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    Key Features

    • Privileged Legal Requests: Legal requests can be marked privileged when in Assigned or Work in Progress states, enforcing access control and confidential communication.
    • Privileged Legal Matters: Matters can be independently marked or unmarked as privileged in the Assigned or Work in Progress states by fulfillers or matter owners.
    • Assignment Group Permissions: When a matter is marked privileged, assignment group access is automatically updated to “No access” to secure sensitive information.
    • Visual Indicators: Privileged matters display a flag in the secondary header and a document access related list showing attachment statuses to help identify confidentiality.
    • Email Notifications: All email communications related to privileged matters include confidentiality markers, applying to both system-generated and fulfiller-sent emails.
    • Stakeholder Change Alerts: Email notifications with confidentiality markers are sent to relevant parties when collaborators, watchlists, or fulfiller assignments change on privileged matters.
    • Promotion of Legal Requests to Matters: Legal requests can be promoted to new or existing matters. The privileged status of the request and matter are tracked independently and changes to one do not affect the other automatically.

    Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers

    This feature helps ensure that sensitive legal communications and documents are securely handled within your ServiceNow legal management processes. By leveraging these controls, you can maintain compliance with legal confidentiality requirements, clearly identify privileged information, and control access rigorously.

    Expect enhanced security for legal matters via automatic permission updates and visibility settings, as well as improved communication tracking through confidentiality markers and stakeholder notifications.

    Attorney Client Privilege enables legal fulfiller or matter owner to designate legal matters 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.

    Assignment group permission changes

    When privileged and confidential is enabled on a legal matter, the system automatically updates the assignment group permission to No access.

    Indicators of a privileged and confidential matter

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

    Identify privileged and confidential matter

    Email notifications

    Email communications generated from Privileged and Confidential matters include 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 matter, the system sends email notifications to the requester, fulfiller, and collaborators. Notifications are triggered when:

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

    All notifications for privileged and confidential matter 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.