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hey guys welcome to associate tribe today we're going to be talking about emails yeah emails those little gifts that you're constantly receiving and sending back specifically we're going to be talking about seven tips and tricks to help up your law firm email gain and avoid potentially embarrassing mistakes [Music] okay first things first make sure your to and CC lines are clear before drafting an email that means taking out all of the recipients from an email you're responding to and putting nobody in an email for a brand new email that you're drafting and if you're responding to an email a really quick way to empty out those two in CC lines is to click forward instead of reply or reply all and that way you get brand new to in CC lines completely empty and as an added bonus you get to attach any of the documents that were already attached to that original email that you might want to include in your response so clearing the two in CC lines are incredibly important it gives you the freedom to draft and edit your email response as much as you possibly want without the fear of sending an inadvertent email an unintended email to someone or before you're ready to send it so I know it takes an extra five to ten seconds to add those recipients back in after you've finished drafting your email but trust me is completely worth it there are so many war stories about associates who sent emails to unintended recipients or emails that had language in them that weren't intended to be sent until it had been edited out so clear those tuned and CC lines okay so tip number two make sure when you're drafting an email that you single somebody out by name that means that rather than send an email something along the lines of here are the documents we received from the client to say specifically Brian here are the documents we received from the client please review them and let us know what they generally say something along those lines because anytime that you're sending an email to more than one person like an internal team email distribution list or opposing counsel or even in-house counsel there's going to be this human nature tendency to not respond so most people if they don't have to and they're not assigned to specific tasks or just generally not going to respond because everyone's so busy and everyone has a lot on their plate that they're not gonna jump at the chance to respond to an email that it's unclear whether it is in within their purview or within their part of the case or account so keep that in mind make sure you're singling people out this works really well for questions as well as tasks being assigned so if you wanted the answer to a question make sure that you're singling the best person you can think of to answer that question so for example instead of sending an email what is the status of the document collection a much better email would be Brian please let us know the status of the document collection so that we can send these over to the client that way even if Brian isn't the correct team member who is in charge of the document collection it still moves the ball forward because he can tell you hey this isn't my task it's Molly's so please get in touch with her either way it's gonna get you a response faster than you would if you just generally send an email to a group of people without singling somebody out if you truly don't know who's in charge of something or you truly do want the email sent to an entire group of people let that be known and indicate that by saying for example all comma below is the list of documents please take a look and let me know if anyone has any heartburn with us producing them something like that so that the group knows it's a group task and instead of thinking okay well documents aren't under my umbrella so I'm not gonna look at them at least somebody knows that it needs to be assigned specifically to somebody or that everybody is in charge of their respective documents that sort of thing same thing with an email to opposing counsel you can say counsel , here's a red line of the protective order please let us know your comments and when you're free for a meet and confer on Wednesday that sort of thing if you just say that without assigning it to anybody in particular there could be the same confusion on the other side who's in charge of getting back to you who is in charge of responding so always assign somebody specifically if you can if you do want an email sent generally to the whole group make sure you indicate that as well by using all teen counsel some sort of signifier like that tip number three write a to confirm email now the to confirm email comes in really handy when you've been assigned a project or a task sort of on the fly either in a team meeting it's conference call in the hallway by somebody and the to confirm email is just that you're writing an email to explain your understanding of what the project is and ask if there's anything additional that you're missing or that the partner wants you to add now this comes in really handy with partners who tend to not explain the project completely at the beginning and tend to have substantive edits on the back end and partners you've never worked with before so you may not know their style yet their management style what they're expecting so it may be a good idea to send it to confirm email the first or second project that you're working with them on until you sort of get into the groove of how they operate and an example of the to confirm email may be something like to confirm what we just discussed my understanding is that you would like me to draft a cease and desist letter identifying ex website and attaching a copy of the best case law that we have where an injunction was granted on this same type of behavior please let me know if there's anything additional that you would like me to add now if the partners in the same office as you are you can absolutely go into their office give them a call but if they're busy or you're having a hard time getting response this type of email is very helpful and just to have it in black and white as helpful as well so that you can have sort of a record of what you understood the project to be and that serves two purposes one hopefully it causes and forces that partner to think about the project a little bit more than the you know ten or twenty seconds that they took while they're explaining it to you and help you to not have to do additional work on the back end that could be helped by them just thinking through their project a little bit more and it also gives you sort of a line of defense where you have explained and communicated what you understood the project to be and if they have any substantive at it's on the back end that's sort of egg in their face and they should be able to be a little bit more lenient as far as time or flexibility goes in getting those changes made so a to confirm email is a very good tool to have and very useful in those circumstances tip number four never end an email with a question meaning never ended email with a question mark that takes you out of the driver's seat of an email and puts you at the mercy of the recipient of that email to get you an answer to get you edits whatever it is you're asking them for and that person may not respond for hours or days so an infinitely better approach it send an email with a statement so for example attached as a draft of the motion for summary judgment please let me know if you have any edits or I propose that we do the following course of action ABC please let me know if you disagree that way it adds an extra layer of protection for you keeps you in control of the timetable and the task and puts the onus on the other person to get back to you with a reasonable amount of time with any edits or any disagreements or any comments and this is incredibly important because if that person doesn't respond at all within a reasonable amount of time then you absolutely have the implication that you can go forward with your plan of action that that person doesn't have any edits and if they then try to come back at the last minute with some edits or comments egg is on their face for waiting so long and absolutely gives you a layer of protection with proceeding with the plan of action that you propose because you never got a response back from them so never end an email with a question always an email with a statement it will work out infinitely better for you I promise tip number 5 set a time deadline for a response to your email that's right you can make up your own time deadlines for people to respond to your email now don't do this all the time or people are gonna stop taking you seriously because you're gonna become known as the person who sets time deadlines on everything arbitrarily but you absolutely should and can set a time deadline for something that is time-sensitive and this will get you responses back more quickly and let you have what you need to be able to do your job so for example you can send an email saying something like attached is the draft of the motion for summary judgment due on Friday please send me your edits by Wednesday evening so that I can get them incorporated and send her on a new draft to the team and you can probably even do that earlier than that I would say Tuesday or Monday is a very fair timetable to ask for edits as well now we all know that you can't stop partners and clients from sending you edits after the fact but it does two things one people will sit up and take notice of a deadline that you create and will usually get you those edits by the time deadline that you ask for them and so you'll get a big chunk of them then and two it adds a layer of protection so that anybody who sends you a after that deadline everybody is aware that that was sent late and that you will be getting the credit for trying to compile all of those within a time crunch and will make them look bad not you so sending that time deadline very important incorporate that for time-sensitive projects absolutely tip number six never send an email on a Friday evening if at all possible do not do it not only is it a professional disc courtesy to send a Friday evening email to a posting counsel or client or even another team member it will also more importantly and more selfishly help save your weekend I know how good it feels to work night after night it's Friday at 8:00 p.m. and you're finished and you want to offload that project to somebody else you want to check it off your to-do list but the problem and the risk that comes with doing that is that you have now made yourself susceptible to follow-up questions and follow-up emails all weekend long and even if you wind up not getting any of those you still have to sit by your phone all weekend just in case somebody has a follow-up question or a follow-up email so save yourself the trouble enjoy your weekend sit on that project until Sunday evening a much better approach send it Sunday evening that way you get to enjoy your weekend and as an added bonus it makes it look like you've worked all weekend long so in order to really get that weekend that you deserve wait and send that email Sunday evening do not send any email Friday evening if at all possible last but not least the most simple but the most important tip of all always proofread your emails I cannot overemphasize this enough treat emails like you would if you were drafting a brief or a memo or an agreement for another party they are just as important you never know who is going to get these emails forwarded to them even if it's an internal team member they may forward it to the client saying see below or even if it's just internally and viewed internally you are not going to lose respect faster than with it poorly written email and you're not going to have others gain confidence in you faster than with a perfectly written email professional and tone clear and the substance is right on point so take the time proofread your emails it's absolutely worth it and you not regret it so there you have it those are your seven emails tips and tricks I hope this video was helpful for you I want to leave you with one final thought keep in mind that our work as attorneys most of the time takes the form of emails much more than it does official documents so keep that in mind when you're taking the time and energy to invest in writing good well-crafted professional emails it's absolutely worth the time and attention and I hope that what we discussed today was helpful for you if you would like to ask a question write a comment or share a war story please do it in the comment section below if you would like to receive a notification every time we release a new video click on the subscribe button and as always I will see you in the next one