Generative AI, Attorney-Client Privilege, and Work Product: Confidentiality, Waiver Risks, Discovery, and Enterprise Governance

Greg Siskind, Founding Partner | Siskind Susser, PC

Greg Siskind has represented immigrants and led within the national immigration bar for more than three decades. He co-founded Siskind Susser, PC – Immigration Lawyers in 1994, Visalaw Ventures — the parent company of legal AI software company Visalaw.ai and book publisher Alan House — in 2019, and IMMpact Litigation in 2020. A longtime pioneer at the intersection of law and technology, he launched the world’s first immigration law firm website in 1994, became the first lawyer in the world with a blog in 1998, and in 2016 was among the first lawyers to publish artificial intelligence immigration tools for lawyers and consumers.

• Education & Credentials

Greg earned his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University in 1986 and his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1990, beginning practice at age 22. He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1990.

• Recognition & Leadership

His honors include the 2024 AILA Technology and Innovation Award, the American Bar Association’s 2022 James E. Keane Award for e-Lawyering, AILA’s 2020 Advocacy Award and 2022 Litigation Award (corecipient), recognition as a 2023 Who’s Who Legal Global Elite Thought Leader, and a listing among the National Law Journal’s 2023 Immigration Law Trailblazers. Who’s Who in Corporate Immigration Law has named him among the ten most distinguished immigration lawyers in the world, and Chambers and Partners has listed him among the top 25 immigration lawyers in the US. He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America in Immigration Law, Mid-South Super Lawyers, and is AV Preeminent Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell. He was the first immigration lawyer photographed for the cover of the American Bar Association Journal.

• Professional Involvement

Greg serves on the Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a position he has held since 2010, and currently chairs the International Bar Association’s Immigration and Nationality Law Committee. He chaired the IMG Taskforce — the physician immigration bar organization — for more than a decade, founded the Tennessee Bar Association’s immigration section, is a past council member of the ABA Law Practice Division and past chair of its Publications Board, and is a member of the Memphis Bar Association. He is also a founder of Visalaw International, the global alliance of immigration lawyers.

• Experience

Greg is the author of seven books — including the J-1 Visa Guidebook, published annually by LexisNexis since 1997, The Physician’s Immigration Handbook, The I-9 and E-Verify Handbook, and Immigration for Startups: A Guide for Founders — along with hundreds of articles and book chapters. He has drafted immigration-related legislation and testified as an expert before the US House of Representatives Immigration Subcommittee. In 1994 he began publishing Siskind’s Immigration Bulletin, the first electronically distributed law firm newsletter, which still reaches tens of thousands of readers monthly. He is regularly interviewed by outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, the Washington Post, NPR’s All Things Considered, Forbes, and Bloomberg.

Lucian Pera, Partner | Adams & Reese LLP

Lucian Pera is one of the nation’s leading legal ethics practitioners. Based in Memphis, his practice focuses on legal ethics and lawyer regulation, media law, and commercial litigation. For more than 30 years he has represented lawyers, law firms, clients, and those who do business with lawyers and law firms on the widest possible array of issues relating to legal ethics and the regulation of lawyers, in a practice that is national in scope.

• Education & Credentials

Lucian earned his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1985 and his A.B. from Princeton University in 1982. He is admitted to the bars of Tennessee and Arizona, and to the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second and Sixth Circuits and multiple federal district courts.

• Recognition & Leadership

The ABA Center for Professional Responsibility has awarded him the Michael Franck Award, its highest honor for career work in ethics and professional responsibility. He is ranked by Chambers USA in Litigation in Tennessee, recognized by Best Lawyers across nine fields including Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law, and has been named Best Lawyers Lawyer of the Year in Memphis multiple times — most recently for Health Care Law in 2026. He has been listed in Mid-South Super Lawyers for Business Litigation since 2006 and is AV Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell.

• Professional Involvement

Lucian was the youngest member of the ABA “Ethics 2000” Commission that rewrote the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, and he served three years as chair of the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility. For twenty years he has been a leader at the highest levels of the ABA on revisions to the Model Rules and other lawyer conduct issues. He is a past president of the Tennessee Bar Association, founding chair of the Practising Law Institute’s annual full-day program “The Ethics of NewLaw,” and coauthor of the ethics chapter of the American Bar Association’s first book addressing AI’s impact on the legal profession, Artificial Intelligence: Legal Issues, Policy, and Practical Strategies (2024).

• Experience

Lucian represents clients in matters ranging from lawyer discipline to lawyer malpractice to expert witness work, and advises lawyers, law firms, businesses, and investors on new business models in the legal services market, innovative marketing techniques, and relationships with vendors of all kinds — from marketers to outsourcing vendors to litigation funders. He also represents media outlets in defamation, privacy, and access matters, and has litigated key media access cases before the Tennessee Supreme Court, including Memphis Publishing Co. v. Cherokee Children & Family Services, Inc. and King v. Jowers. His wide-ranging civil litigation practice includes commercial, personal injury, and intellectual property litigation, along with numerous state and federal appeals.

SESSION 1 – Confidentiality in the Prompt: Attorney-Client Confidentiality, Work Product, and Waiver Risks When Using Generative AI | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Every prompt a lawyer types can route confidential client information through a third-party system, and generative AI is now embedded in how lawyers draft, research, and communicate. This session examines how confidentiality, attorney-client privilege, and work product principles apply when client information meets a large language model, how AI platforms ingest, retain, and reuse attorney-entered data, and the key differences between consumer, enterprise, and firm-hosted AI systems. It also addresses both lawyer and client use of AI tools. Attendees will explore their ethical obligations under ABA Model Rules 1.6, 1.1 (Comment 8), and 1.4, ABA Formal Opinion 512, and emerging state bar guidance, using established cloud computing and outsourcing ethics as a framework for evaluating AI.

The session analyzes whether entering privileged information into AI systems risks waiver, drawing on Heppner and Warner v. Gilbarco to explain the evolving law governing attorney-client privilege, work product protection, and inadvertent disclosure, including the distinct waiver standards that apply to each. It also examines the practical risks associated with prompts, uploaded documents, summaries, chat histories, and client-identifiable information; when engagement agreements and outside counsel guidelines require disclosure of AI use and informed client consent; strategies for reducing risk through vendor terms, data retention and confidentiality safeguards, and internal protocols; the scope and limits of work product protection for AI-generated materials; and emerging discovery disputes involving AI prompts, outputs, revision histories, document retention, and litigation hold practices.

BREAK | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

SESSION 2 – AI Governance, Loss Prevention, and Discovery Challenges | 2:10pm – 3:10pm 

As generative AI moves from experimentation to core infrastructure within law firms and legal departments, attorneys must understand both the discovery implications of AI-assisted work and the governance frameworks necessary to manage evolving legal and ethical risks. This session examines how AI-generated materials may affect litigation, professional responsibility, and organizational oversight as the use of generative AI becomes increasingly embedded in legal practice.

Attendees will explore the risks posed by AI hallucinations and fabricated citations, with particular emphasis on the duty of candor under ABA Model Rule 3.3 and the lessons drawn from recent sanctions imposed on lawyers who submitted AI-generated inaccuracies. The program also addresses the development of effective enterprise AI governance programs through written policies, approved-tool lists, access controls, audit trails, and staff training. In addition, it examines best practices for vendor due diligence and AI contracting, including confidentiality protections, data-retention limitations, security commitments, and indemnification provisions that should be evaluated before adopting AI technologies. Finally, attendees will analyze supervisory and compliance responsibilities under ABA Model Rules 5.1 and 5.3 when partners, associates, support staff, and outside vendors use generative AI, and consider how to prepare for increasing litigation risks, bar inquiries, and regulatory scrutiny as standards governing AI-assisted legal practice continue to evolve.