In-House Counsel

Emojipedia: An Essential Legal Resource?

The question we should be asking is not how emojis got here, but what we should do with them now that they’ve arrived.

By Olga V. Mack on October 04, 2021 10:49 am

Emojis have filtered their way into our lives in recent years. It all started when people got creative with punctuation marks, creating smiley faces like  or  or even more original ones, like (^ o ^). These became increasingly popular, and eventually developed into the golden-faced emoticons that we know and love today. Nevertheless, the question we should be asking is not how they got here, but what we should do with them now that they’ve arrived. How, when appropriate, can we use them effectively with clients? After all, they are here to stay.

I have always been a firm advocate of adopting and adapting new technologies that could suit one’s purposes or better achieve one’s aims. This is no less true of emojis. While initially hesitant due to my mental image of what it means to be professional, I soon realized that the little pictures were in keeping with my dynamic personality. I have always been very bold in my words and actions, and have found no reason to stop doing so now. If you’re like me, then you know you need to incorporate emojis into your communication. Perhaps you aren’t anything like me, however, so, what other reasons do lawyers have to care about tiny, simplistic pictures?

The first reason is simply that it’s a tool for communication. If I send you a message saying “I’ll find you,” I could be a friend meeting you for coffee … or I could be a serial killer (which I don’t consider myself to be). Plain text makes it incredibly hard to communicate tone, let alone all the other forms of communication that take place during face-to-face conversation. Emojis enable you to share an inkling of your tone and intention. They are a form of textual body language if you will. This makes for clearer communication as well as humanizing you a little bit. In a world increasingly centered around remote working, most communication takes place through texts, emails, briefs, and calls. In the former three formats, it is nearly impossible to build relationships or personalize them without using emojis. Using these quirky symbols can build rapport with clients and team members alike.

Just make sure you know what the emojis mean! Avoid saying things like “I’m feeling peachy” followed by the peach emoji — it has more-nefarious connotations. Other tips would be to type simple smileys like  and not like (: since the latter is seen as a little creepier and threatening.

Having said that, if you want to check the connotations of an emoji, take a look at Emojipedia and Urban Dictionary to get more culturally relevant explanations of their usages.

Finally, we must consider that emojis have been featured in court cases! Sometimes, they have even been a deciding factor in a verdict. They have been used to help determine behavioral trends and threats, and often give an indication as to the intention of the individual. Hence the need to familiarize ourselves with emojis and increase visual literacy for lawyers.

Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.