Useful Hints of How to Avoid Email Mistakes

According to the Rules and Regulations of the State of New York, it is an annual requirement for all the attorneys who have been admitted to practice law in our State to receive Continuing Legal Education. CLE intends to give us professional development and to increase our competence as lawyers. In addition to that, because of the constant changes in our era's legal environment, it is important to us and our clients to stay abreast on recent legal issues and developments.

My mentor suggested me to attend a CLE workshop yesterday regarding tips for more effective emails. The speaker and distinguished coach, Ms. Marilyn Bush LeLeiko gave some interesting and valuable advice to me and to the whole audience about our everyday email communications. As the speech was very stimulating, I decided to share with you some of her guidelines.

According to an article of Wall Street Journal in 2002, it has been estimated that we receive every day approximately 300 to 500 emails. Because of the quick rhythms of our lives, we give priority to respond to emails based on the sender's identity and the subject line.

Pursuant to the speaker's advice, in order the sender not to cause difficulty or annoyance to the recipient, the email should be without typos, brief, to the point, and without using ALL CAPS or Exclamation Points. Especially, the subject line should be clear and meaningful to the reader. It's not appropriate to leave the subject line blank, change it without any reason, or state numbers, letters, or symbols in the subject line which may not make sense to the reader.

Bear in mind that the intended readers are not always attorneys. Therefore, we should adjust every email depending on the addressee and always provide the reader with a roadmap, using white space, bullets, numbered lists, headings, and in case of a non-attorney reader we should be alert and not state citations to the email's content.

In addition, an email should include the receiver's name, a "Thanks", a "Best Regards" or the like, a "Please" when it's appropriate and, of course, a signature block with the sender's name, position, firm's name, phone number, email address, and website URL. Apart from this, we should be careful with our attachments and always check the documents before sending them. Scandals and serious misunderstandings have been triggered due to Auto Correct option and false attachments. Moreover, we should always name our attachment and if it's not going to add more information in the substance of our email, we should eventually avoid sending it.

Over and above that, we should also be cautious when we send emails to our contact list or we use "Reply All". This can also cause trouble and if we want to keep confidentiality in a matter, it's wise to use the BCC option for all the email addresses. Moreover, it's not proper to redact an email. Hence, feel free to copy other people to an email after having taken their permission.

Be aware that even if you delete an email, this can remain in the system; it can be hacked; it can be forwarded or it can be electronically discovered in a litigation process. As for the IRS disclaimers, IRS has started to discourage attorneys from using these disclaimers in an email. To conclude, before sending an email, consider if this is the best way to communicate with your client or colleague and then check your email for the last time.

I agree with all the points that the speaker presented yesterday during the CLE workshop and accordingly I would recommend you to use your personal email for communication with your friends and family and you can just pick up the phone or communicate alternatively in case you need to keep a matter in confidentiality.

Be always professional, responsive, courteous and try to respond to your emails by the end of the day or in 24 hours. Life is a long process of growth and learning and as a result we will make mistakes. But, if we learn from them, we will become better persons and professionals.

P.S.: As we are too close to the upcoming elections in my country, I would like to urge all the voters to consider that governance is not about the next election, it's about our and next generations.