Some courts and commentators have been urging that lawyers and litigants only use predictive coding when they have entered into a fully disclosed and cooperative use protocol. This notion – that parties must cooperate in a transparent fashion in order to use predictive coding – is particularly apparent in the development of the training or seed set of documents. Those advocating this position argue that cooperative and transparent seed set creation will more readily ensure that the predictive coding process proceeds in an orderly fashion. The byproduct of doing so, proponents argue, will be document productions that satisfy standards of reasonableness and proportionality. While it is impossible to argue against cooperation and transparency in discovery, we assert that the allure of this position fails to recognize that a seed set generated through counsel’s exercise of skill, judgment, and reasoning may reflect its perceptions of relevance, litigation tactics, or even its trial strategy. In this article, we argue that these conclusions regarding key strategic issues – memorialized in counsel’s selection of documents – are entitled to protection from disclosure under the attorney work product doctrine since they may reveal counsel’s mental processes and legal theories. Our arguments on the issues are grounded in the holding and policies underlying the Supreme Court’s venerable opinion of Hickman v. Taylor. They also find support in well-established work product jurisprudence that generally protects a lawyer’s selection of documents from discovery in analogous circumstances. While there are limitations to this rule and though there are obvious potential benefits to cooperation and transparency, we contend that the convenience created by these notions should not be used to coerce a lawyer into revealing its work product as reflected in the development of a predictive coding seed set.