In-House Counsel

The Road Not Taken: Use Your Words

Confusion is a roadblock to productivity, and as lawyers, we have no excuse for sending communications that cannot be understood by the recipient.

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As a member of a profession that is supposed to be the province of the articulate and loquacious, I have received an uncountable number of emails without words. Not emails with poignant pictures that speak a thousand words, not emails with links that are worth the click, not premature transmissions of emails that were sent too soon.

No, my email archives are littered with communications like: “??!” and “ETA re: FATP.” Acronyms are part of the lexicon of my industry, and I’ve learned to translate those communications. But the emails with punctuation only or links without context infuriate me. Even if the sender’s intent is only to inform me of new events, I have an immediate emotional reaction of disgust when I see that the sender couldn’t even take the time to advise me of his reason for sending me the email.

At this point, I have to calm myself down and try to read the sender’s mind. What did he mean? Is he asking for a status report? Is he pointing out a failure on my part? What is the point of this email? And I’ve wasted time wondering and conjecturing instead of being productive. Whether it is true or not, I interpret the lazy email transmission as an assertion of power. The sender is far too important to waste time by thinking about words, implying that, as the recipient, I am less important and not deserving of the three seconds that it would take to type one sentence or even a phrase of explanation. This makes me angry all over again.

Just like in our personal life, we sometimes relax our vigilance on etiquette when we are comfortable with other people or can mutually take our communications for granted. This, however, is not an email etiquette column. This is a column about efficiency for everyone. I personally experience several unproductive moments of fury when I receive a cryptic email, but even for people with more tolerant temperaments, time is likely wasted figuring out the sender’s intention.

For my colleagues who work with numbers more than words, I can find space in my heart to forgive the insult. I can convince myself they don’t know any better.  For my legal colleagues, however, I have no forgiveness. We are lawyers. We are supposed to be articulate, or at least functionally expressive. At its core, the valuable service we offer is how we communicate and understand words. If we reduce efficiency because of poor communication, how much value are we creating for our organization?

There is an easy solution to this that doesn’t take much more time than forwarding an email with an uncertain purpose: the subject line. Remember that thing? The subject line. It’s great. It’s like Twitter for people who don’t want to open their email. It’s short, and you can communicate the important crux of the issue without wasting time explaining why you forwarded an email with only punctuation marks in the body of your email and no context for the recipient.

A simple “FYI” or “Pls follow-up” in the subject line or in the body of the email, providing the tiny kernel of context necessary for the recipient to quickly understand the purpose of the communication, is invaluable. As lawyers, we have no excuse for sending communications that cannot be understood by the recipient. Even if we as the sender believe the recipient should know what the purpose of the email is, we invite waste and inefficiency when we put the burden of interpretation on the recipient. We owe it to our customers, whether internal business customers for in-house lawyers, or clients for firm lawyers, to be as efficient as our customers (if not more efficient). This principle applies not just to emails, but to all of our professional communications. Confusion is a roadblock to productivity.

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As attorneys, we are obliged to demonstrate our value as professionals. There are reasons other than politeness to use our words and do so effectively. Getting things done and done efficiently should be everyone’s goal. When Legal gets things accomplished quickly and accurately, we add value for our customers or clients, and that should always be our goal.

Celeste Harrison Forst has practiced in small and mid-sized firms and is now in-house at a large manufacturing and technology company where she receives daily hugs from her colleagues. You can reach Celeste directly at C.harrisonforst@gmail.com.

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