Emails

Inside Straight: Avoiding E-Mail Stupidity

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There’s one guy in your outfit who understands the need not to write stupid e-mails: That’s the guy who just spent all day in deposition being tortured with the stupid e-mails that he wrote three years ago.

That guy will control himself. He’ll write fewer and more carefully phrased e-mails for the next couple of weeks. Then he’ll go back to writing stupid stuff again, just like everyone else.

You can’t win this game; no matter what you say, people will revert to informality and write troublesome e-mails. But you’re not allowed to give up. What’s an in-house lawyer to do?

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MoFo Partner Offers Cautionary Tale in Use of ‘Reply All’

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A partner at Morrison & Foerster accidentally “replied all” to an email on which “List/Attorney/All” was cc’d. Emails sent to “List/Attorney/All” go out to all 1,000-plus MoFo lawyers around the world.

What the partner wrote in the email was probably not something that should have been shared with the rest of the firm….

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Inside Straight: Keeping People In The Loop

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How much do other people have to know?

This question comes up in many different contexts, and answering it always requires a little judgment.

At law firms, the questions often involve what the partner or the client needs to know. These people are supposed to be kept in the loop, but that task may be trickier than it seems. You want people to be fully informed, but you don’t want to become a pest, constantly alerting people to irrelevant trifles. What’s a person to do?

The answer varies by many things, including the nature of the matter you’re working on, the compulsiveness of the person you’re working with, the degree of trust established between you and the person you’re working with, time pressure, and the like. To the extent it’s possible, though, let’s establish some general rules….

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More on Stephen McDaniel: A Missing Bar Prep Session, and Possible Fiber Evidence

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Stephen McDaniel

We realize some of you are getting Stephen McDaniel fatigue. We apologize if that’s the case, but CHECK YOU CALENDAR: it’s August.

Aside from the stock market craziness that could signal a second recession, and perhaps the London riots, we are in a slow news period. And the story of Stephen Mark McDaniel, the 25-year-old Mercer Law School graduate accused of killing a comely classmate, Lauren Giddings, is just about the most interesting story out there.

If you’re not interested in this story, nobody is forcing you to read our coverage (which we tend to put up after regular business hours anyway). But if you are as interested in this fascinating case as we are — and our traffic stats suggest that you are very, very interested — then read on for the latest developments….

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The Collected Writings of Stephen McDaniel

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Stephen Mark McDaniel

In prior coverage of Stephen Mark McDaniel, the Mercer Law School graduate accused of murdering his former neighbor and classmate, Lauren Giddings, we alluded to several emails that Stephen McDaniel sent to some of his classmates. Some students found the emails, which reflected McDaniel’s conservative political views, to be strange or disturbing.

Thanks to the kindness of several tipsters, we now have copies of some of the emails sent around Mercer Law by Stephen M. McDaniel. We will now share them with you, so you can judge for yourself whether there is anything in this correspondence that is troubling or problematic….

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Deep in the Heart of Texas, Where Lawyers Go to School to Become Paralegals

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Many law school graduates are wondering how they can make themselves more marketable in light of their dismal job prospects. Hell, even graduates from elite law schools are having trouble finding jobs these days.

What can these would-be lawyers do to help themselves land a respectable job?

Some of these people are actually so desperate they believe that getting even more legal education will solve their employment woes. Maybe, just maybe, they think, an LLM from a better school will help them wipe the sub-T14 sludge off their résumés. Of course, money is no object, because really, after throwing $150,000 at a wall and hoping that it sticks, another couple thousand dollars is just a drop in the bucket.

But don’t sign up for that LLM just yet, because the masterminds at the University of Texas School of Law may have a solution for you. Education is the key, but it’s not the kind of education that you’d expect….

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Adventures in Lawyer Spam: Join the Biglaw Revolution

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Have you ever dreamed of changing the Biglaw model, of making the law firm a pleasant place to work? If so, we might have just the opportunity for you.

Some Hogan Lovells attorneys were recently offered the opportunity of a lifetime, courtesy of “The Office of Mr. Monfort in Partnership with Hogan Lovells International.” Mr. Monfort invites all Hogan Lovells employees to join the Lawyers Transformation Program, which will “allow a lawyer to identify the excesses and wrongdoing of the current law firm model in order to accomplish the transition into a long-term and sustainable law firm approach.”

In case this wasn’t sufficient to get Hogan Lovells attorneys on board, the invitation goes on to list in detail the crazy lofty ideals of the Lawyers Transformation Program, promising nothing short of revolution and greatness.

The only problem? Hogan Lovells, not surprisingly, has no idea who Mr. Monfort is. Find out how you can join the Biglaw utopia movement and read the Hogan Lovells response, after the jump.

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Into the Wild: Where In the World Is Tyler Coulson?

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Tyler Coulson's dog, Mabel.

Do you remember our Lawyer of the Month for March, Tyler Coulson? In case you don’t, he’s the former Sidley Austin Chicago associate who decided that he’d rather take his dog on a cross-country walk than do another day of lawyering. Before leaving, Coulson sent what was described by a fellow Sidley source as the “coolest ‘f**k you I quit’ email” ever:

Today is my last day at Sidley. You may keep in touch with me at gtcoulson@gmail.com, through Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/tyler.coulson, or via Twitter, @ibuildnosystem.

Beginning next week, I am walking from Delaware to California with a tent and my dog, Mabel. I will have limited access to email, but will check messages frequently.

– Geo. Tyler Coulson

On March 9, 2011, Coulson began his journey in Delaware with his pooch Mabel, in the hopes of making it to California by September. So, inquiring minds at Above the Law want to know: What the heck happened to Coulson and man’s best friend?

Did he have to pull any crazy Bear Grylls maneuvers, like creating his own “sheeping” bag for warmth? Did he have to hack off his own arm with a dull blade, like in 127 Hours? To find out if Coulson’s story turned out anything like Into the Wild, read on….

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Quote of the Day: Sounds Like Someone Needs A Little Vacation

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This is the worst piece of whoring journalism I have read in a long time. How long are you going to suck [U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara]’s teat? All to hurt a decent, honest witness, [whom assistant U.S. attorney Reed] Brodsky could not lay a glove on. It did not work. The jury was not impressed by the worst cross examination ever delivered. So in the style of Preet, try to smear him by working the sycophants in the back of the Courtroom. He learned from Schumer in the Senate… Preet is scared sh[**]less he is going to lose this case so he feeds his whores at the WSJ. What a disgrace for an otherwise great paper.

– John Dowd, partner at Akin Gump and defense lawyer to Raj Rajaratnam, in an irate email to Wall Street Journal reporter Chad Bray.

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Inside Straight: A Disquisition On Pile-O’-Crap Syndrome

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Pile-o’-crap syndrome: We’ve all been victimized by it.

In private practice, it arrives in the form of four boxes of documents (containing about 2000 pages each) delivered to your door with a single handwritten note of explanation: “Here are the documents you’ll need to prepare Smith for his deposition on Wednesday.”

What does that note really say? “Here’s a pile of crap. I can’t be bothered. You deal with it.”

For an in-house lawyer, the pile o’ crap arrives in the form of a one-sentence e-mail responding to your request for a brief description of a particular lawsuit that’s headed to trial: “As you requested, I’ve attached my 100-page, single-spaced summary of the discovery record in this case.”

What does that e-mail really say? “Here’s a pile of crap. I can’t be bothered. You deal with it.”

In business environments everywhere, pile-o’-crap syndrome arrives in the form of e-mails that say only either (1) “see attached letter” or (2) “see attached chain of e-mails.”

What do those communications really say? “Here’s a pile of crap. I can’t be bothered. You figure it out.”

Why do people do this?

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