The whole purpose of having an attorney-client privilege is so that you feel safe talking to your lawyer. So another factor courts look for is whether you and your lawyer thought your communications were private. Most lawyers will also have a line at the bottom of their emails and documents that they provide that says something like, “This communication is privileged and confidential.” These are some of the signs that you expected your messages to be privileged.nnIn Waters v. City of Petaluma, we can see how the court took this into account. In that case, the City signed an agreement with their lawyer that stated flat out that the report the lawyer would give them would be attorney-client privileged until the City waived the privilege or a court determined otherwise. The lawyer also took extra care to make sure no one saw the report except for the City decision makers. On every page of the investigation report that the lawyer gave to the City, there was a line saying that it was confidential and attorney-client privileged. So when the court was trying to decide whether the report was privileged, these things helped them decide that it was.