based on the discovery from this and other cases, everyone at Google believed they were entitled to meet with legal counsel and that all conversations were privileged
If you're saying that random engineers aren't actually entitled to meet with legal counsel and have a privileged conversation where they privately ask for directed legal advice, that would be surprising news to me.
It sounds like a lot of senior people at Google don’t understand how privilege works.
I ask a lawyer about the legality of specific acts I am considering. This is privileged conversation.
I send an email to someone else telling them to do something (which may be in violation of one or more laws). I copy legal counsel on the email and "request their input on their subject at hand". This is not privileged communication.