Some Thoughts on "Email: The Reality in Law in 2013"

My friend and colleague Christian Stegmaier has penned (typed?) a thought-provoking post over at his new blog Lawyer as Service Professional.  In summary, because email is the primary communications medium for clients, Christian posits those attorneys who choose to "manage" email (i.e. put off responses to clients) risk compromising their very role as responsive service professionals.  In other words, email is the reality of client communication, so think very carefully about de-emphasizing or overlooking the importance of that medium.

I could not agree more with Christian's basic premise:  attorneys are in the service business, and there is absolutely nothing to prevent clients from voting with their feet if we do not meet their expectations.   Responsiveness is certainly one of the most important if not the most important (and consistent) ways in which attorneys can serve clients, and email by its very nature enables lightning response. 

However, I want to mention a couple of ways in which undue email emphasis may limit a service professional's effectiveness toward her clients.  First, the nature of what we do (deadlines, impending trials and hearings, etc.) requires attorneys to prioritize where we spend our time and attention.  And the typical email inbox by default has a tendency to make the most recent message the most important.  To quote David Allen, (about whom I have written previously here, here, and here) the inbox causes us to confuse the urgent with the important.  In my view, taking steps to manage and prioritize your inbox is critical, if only so you can better separate the wheat from the chaff.  If you are serious about prioritizing and managing your inbox, you must explore Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen. And there is no space or time to fully explore this point, but email is awful for collaboration with clients.  As we move forward (irrespective of the current reality), we will all serve our clients better when we employ the best medium to facilitate that service.

Similarly, another critical service attorneys provide to their clients is thoughtful consideration of their cases, problems and issues.  And as Jason Fried (and countless others) have observed, meaningful work (concentration and attention) cannot take place amidst too many distractions.  More pointedly, a brief I am writing would suffer greatly if I answer email messages (or allow other distractions) while stringing together (presumably cogent) ideas. To Christian's important point, if client expectations demand immediate email responses, perhaps designating a staff person to provide personalized responses (in the same way your phone would get answered when you are unavailable) would make sense.

Finally, clients understand that our rapid responsiveness naturally gives way at times in order that we devote that full attention to the matters we do on their behalf.  The client for whom we are arguing an appeal or motion, taking or defending a deposition, or trying a case fully expect and demand that the email requests of other clients remain unanswered and unviewed-- at least until those matters are concluded.  And I certainly hope that the desire to provide lightning response doesn't take place on I-26.  

In sum, email is the communications reality (at least for now), but that doesn't mean that the inbox need be the hub of a lawyer's daily existence.  It is a useful tool, if managed properly but not for everything an attorney does.  And sometimes only stepping away from that inbox, if only for short amounts of time, is the only way to recognize the reality beyond that interface.

Comments and responses always welcome at @jjpringlesc.

Battling Email Overload - Part One: Stanch and Divert the Flow

If you are overwhelmed by email volume, this is the first of several posts with some ideas of how to regain some control. Let me acknowledge in advance some of the ideas in these posts I learned during a Rocket Matter webinar: Maximizing Productivity With the Emails Glutting Your Inbox, and an episode of the Kennedy-Mighell Report: Powering Up Your Personal Productivity.

The first task is to reduce the sheer number of emails hitting your inbox in the course of a day. A high volume of unimportant email traffic makes it very difficult and time-consuming for you to focus on what is important.

Rule 1: Turn off the Faucet (Unsubscribe Ruthlessly): You are not going to use 98% of the marketing and trade publications you receive via email. Get rid of them. Having them in your inbox just increases your anxiety about the need to read them. If the information is worthwhile, as a general rule there is absolutely no reason for you to receive newsletters, updates, offers, etc. by means of email. More efficient and effective delivery mechanisms now exist for that purpose, none of which ever touch any mailbox. These include setting up RSS feeds for the content you need, and following your information sources on Twitter. The process of transitioning this information also helps you discern and evaluate importance and significance.

Rule 2: Divert the Flow (Transition to Web-Based Email: If you are not comfortable with RSS or other web feeds, transition all of your non-essential traffic to a web-based email service. (Gmail is free, and just recently launched Gmail Priority Inbox, to help sort your messages and contacts based on how important they are). With web-based email, you never need to worry about managing your inbox, and you can access your messages at your leisure. As with above, consider while transitioning whether the information continues to be worthwhile.

To the extent that you receive email notification (and consider whether you should) regarding activity in your social media applications (Twitter follows, Facebook messages, LinkedIn notifications), move those to web-based email, too. Better yet, find a desktop application like Tweetdeck, so that all of your activity in those applications is accessible in one place, and you see that activity by choice.

Rule 3: Don't Use Your Inbox as a Library: Time was I would email myself links, articles, and documents so I could evaluate and save elsewhere later. Consider a program like Evernote, which allows you to keep various types of notes (text, links, pictures, etc.) in "notebooks" you create within the Evernote desktop interface. It puts a button in your browser that allows you to send a webpage (or part of one) directly into your notebooks. Moreover, it syncs up your desktop and your smartphone automatically, and it allows you to easily categorize your notes with "tags" for quick retrieval. And it is free.

Rule 4: Use IM Where Possible For short, frequent communications (e.g. preparing a document for filing with your team), consider instant messaging instead of email. Consider the following exchange: <"Is the document final?" "Add X to the caption and today's date." "Done." "Ready for my signature." "Ok"> With email you have five messages that must be managed. IM gives you an easy communications interface, and no messages to delete or move.

Finally, for all you word sheriffs out there, the proper term is "stanch," not "staunch."

Why Email isn't Instant Messaging

Another plea to use Google Docs or another method to stop the incessant stream of messages requiring immediate responses.

Email Sanity: How to Clear Your Inbox When You are Drowning

Some good tips from Zen Habits