Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | Trial

Put your best e-face forward: e-mail is a top attorney tool. Send messages anytime from anywhere, but do it wisely and well to create a good impression.

Article Excerpt
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

E-mail. It's what's for breakfast--and dinner. It may be the first thing you tackle during the day and the last thing you do at night. Today, most attorneys rely on this form of communication to get their jobs done well. It's like sleeping or eating or breathing--it's necessary and it's part of you. But is it your best part?

According to a 2007 ABA legal technology survey, 97 percent of respondents said they use e-mail at work for routine correspondence, and more than 70 percent said they use it for tracking case status and sending memoranda/briefs. (1) Attorneys also use e-mail for marketing and court filing. (2)

In the electronic age of instant communication from anywhere at any time, make sure you preserve your impeccable image. Use e-mail wisely, and it will create a good impression. Get sloppy, cut corners, or take it for granted, and the picture you show the world may be less like a Rembrandt and more like the black velvet painting of dogs playing poker.

Function

Form follows function, so begin with the latter and think for a minute about what you require e-mail to do.

Most plaintiff attorneys use e-mail for communicating with multiple clients, cocounsel, and opposing counsel; setting up depositions and meetings; and sharing documents with clients and cocounsel. Some say they actually use e-mail more often with opposing counsel than with clients. E-mail can also save attorneys time, paper, postage, FedEx charges, and more.

Before you start typing out your message, pause and consider why you're corresponding this way and what you need to achieve.

"Think through your e-mail from the recipient's point of view, and make sure you've done everything you can to try and help yourself before contacting someone else," advises Merlin Mann, a writer who covers productivity, on his Web site. (3) He says there are three purposes for business e-mail: providing information, requesting information, and requesting action.

"It should be clear to your recipient which type of e-mail yours is," Mann writes. "Don't be afraid to write an actual 'topic sentence' that clarifies what this is about, and what response or action you require of the recipient."

Consider how you're using e-mail as well. "I always elect out of receiving notice and service by e-mail. There are just too many different ways a critical communication can be sent to a junk mail folder," said attorney J.K. Ivey of Austin, Texas. "I want the court and counsel to forward a hard copy by fax or mail. Those forms of communication always generate more eyeballs than an e-mail to my address, where I might be the only person to see it--or miss it."

Once you've clarified the function of e-mail, set some parameters for how you and others in your firm use it.

Attorney and technology consultant Daniel Siegel of Havertown, Pennsylvania, recommends establishing an e-mail use policy that sets out whether and to what extent e-mail can be used for personal correspondence; whether and how documents may be appended to e-mail and what security procedures must be used to open attachments received; the firm's official e-mail retention policies; requirements...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!