Privil exists because the privilege is too fragile for a sticky note.
We're a small team of lawyers, security engineers, and policy specialists building the privacy layer that keeps privileged communications privileged in the age of the model.
The conversation that started it.
In June 2025, our co-founders sat in a partner’s office on Sixth Avenue and watched a senior associate paste a draft term sheet into ChatGPT to ask for clarifying language. The deal involved a public company.
The associate was not breaking any rule the firm had written. The firm had not written one. Within a month, two of the same firm’s litigators received subpoenas for AI conversation histories in an unrelated matter. Eight months later, the Southern District handed down Heppner.
Privil exists because the answer to “what’s our AI policy?” cannot be the same answer firms gave to “what’s our email retention policy?” a generation ago. The technology is too pervasive and the privilege is too fragile.
Our principles.
- § I
Confidentiality is the product.
Privil does not look at your firm's prompts. Detection runs in customer-controlled environments. Audit logs belong to you.
- § II
Lawyers, then engineers.
Every product decision is reviewed by counsel before code. We are skeptical of clever solutions that introduce new privilege risks.
- § III
Interoperable, not territorial.
We work alongside Harvey, CoCounsel, Microsoft 365, and whatever your firm adopts next. The privacy layer should never be the thing slowing you down.