Managing and drafting emails and letters

• Author: Stewart Edelstein
• Pages: 49-63

49

CHAPTER THREE

MANAGING AND

DRAFTING EMAILS

AND LETTERS

As a trial lawyer, each day you send and receive scores of emails. This

chapter discusses how to manage your emails, when not to send emails,

how to draft emails, email etiquette, how to avoid inadvertent waiver of

the attorney-client privilege, how to organize and save emails, and how

to draft letters.

1. HOWTOMANAGEYOUREMAILS

Unless you focus on each task at hand as you do it, you will allow your

att ent ion to be di ver ted, resu lti ng in slip page caus ed by each dis trac tio n,

inefficiency, and waste of time. As a result, you will work longer hours

(not all of which can be billed) wit h less productivity, and your energies

will be diluted.

Emails provide an enticing opportunity to lose focus. For example,

while working on a brief, your computer flashes a notice, possibly with

an enticing “ding,” that you just received an email you want to read. Do

you break your train of thought, stop drafting mid-sentence, and read

that email? Or do you resist that impulse, finish the section of the brief

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