I think an accused should be able to make strategy notes for a court case and be able to have those be secret from the prosecution, and to look up things for these purposes, and, to use Google docs etc. if he so wants.
I also see that some other comments describe that work product has previously been treated as a broader notion with less focus on the advocate and more on preparing for the court case, so I'm far from convinced this has been decided correctly.
Work product was treated more broadly in one case by a lower magistrate court, but the court making the decision in this case is not bound by that lower court's ruling. What will be interesting is if this ruling gets appealed up to the sups. I doubt the decision will be overruled in any case.
>(A) Documents and Tangible Things. Ordinarily, a party may not discover documents and tangible things that are prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or its representative (including the other party's attorney, consultant, surety, indemnitor, insurer, or agent). But, subject to Rule 26(b)(4), those materials may be discovered if:
So the "by or for another party or its representative" seems more like my thinking than the thinking you're describing.
I think considering other statements, Rakoff is certainly wrong. The documents were prepared as part of pretrial preparations. Non-experts need to be able to use search engines, books, etc. and which books someone was handed for their pretrial preparations, or what lookups they have made can't be the business of their opponents. You have an adversarial system. One party can't have access to the pretrial preparations of the other party, it won't lead to fair trials.