About one-third of the population send several hundred billion emails every day. If you’ve worked in legal operations in a large organization, and even if you haven’t, you’ve probably hit send too soon and either regretted sending an email or felt stupid for including or omitting something, like an attachment.
Not to worry — it happens to the best of us.
The obviously more problematic circumstance involves those whose emails wind up in the public domain. Remember the “churn the hours” emails that emanated from law firms a few years back? It can be rather embarrassing.
So, it makes sense for legal operations people to consider a few basic and practical rules — some email etiquette, if you will.
First, never write something in an email that you do not expect to be posted on the front page of the New York Times. Now, generally speaking, most of us don’t write anything in email that is of tremendous public import. But the point is that if you approach emails — or any digital communication for that matter — from the perspective that the whole world will read it, it has a sobering effect on what we write and makes us choose our words more carefully.
Second, don’t send any email if you’re upset or angry. If you just received a message that makes your blood boil or you are in the midst of an internal “war of words” within your organization, then temporarily do not send or reply to email, and least of all the subjects of your ire. It’s okay to write the email. Send it yourself or to a friend or colleague. The general rule is not to send emails written in the heat of emotion. It’s better to not send any message at all.
Next, there are rules for using cc and bcc when sending email. A message should be addressed to the primary recipients — in other words, in the “To” box enter the names of anyone your message is directed to. These are the folks who are expected to take action or respond. The cc box is for information only purposes, like looping in a supervisor or functional manager or just a courtesy to a higher-up. The bcc box should be outlawed, frankly. It doesn’t really serve any purpose other than to annoy people. In my experience, bcc is used for stealth or deceptive purposes.
Fourth, you just hit Reply All on an email from the CEO to the entire organization. Oops. There’s actually two sides to this one. You are either the sender who isn’t paying attention and doesn’t really care that 600 people get your “thanks” reply, or you are the recipient who gets 200 emails a day and it’s just annoying to receive another, and in this case, unnecessary, email. Be careful using Reply All.
Finally, overuse of the “urgent” message or otherwise marking emails as important or requiring an immediate response is just rude. Everyone thinks their work is important, but if you’re in a bind and need information quickly, pick up the phone and call or better yet, take a walk down the hall. I think that it’s for people with expectations like this that instant messaging and texts were invented.
And we can also add to these rules some basic truths that should generally be observed. If you have something personal to say to someone, say it in person. Never write foul language, racy, or suggestive stuff in email. And don’t badmouth coworkers or your boss. Everyone should understand that in most instances email creates a permanent record of what you’ve written.
Mike Quartararo
Mike Quartararo is the managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to the legal industry. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike has many years of experience delivering e-discovery, project management, and legal technology solutions to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe and is widely considered an expert on project management, e-discovery and legal matter management. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @edpmadvisory.
