SAN FRANCISCO — Uber Technologies Inc. was considering buying the driverless-car startup of a former Google engineer two days after he resigned from the tech giant, and was already anticipating a lawsuit if it did, attorneys for Google parent Alphabet Inc.  said in federal court here Wednesday.

The new evidence appears to affirm allegations by Google’s driverless-car unit, Waymo, that Uber and its former engineer, Anthony Levandowski, were in contact around the time of his departure from Google — and that Uber was aware of certain risks associated with the startup, months before it bought it.

Uber eventually acquired Levandowski’s startup, Ottomotto LLC, for $680 million in August 2016, nearly seven months later. In February, Waymo sued Uber, alleging Levandowski colluded with Uber to steal 14,000 confidential documents from Waymo — even before he left Google — to jump-start Uber’s self-driving car efforts. Uber denies the charges.

Waymo attorneys said at a court hearing Wednesday that on Jan. 29, 2016, two days after Levandowski resigned from Google, Uber attorneys emailed one another about defending Levandowski and Uber from any potential lawsuit over Uber’s potential purchase of Levandowski’s startup, which was incorporated just two weeks earlier, public records show.