Winning Email Communication Strategies for Legal IT Professionals

06
Jul
2011

Christy Burke

(Hope All is Well with You…)

Whether you love to hate emails, or you hate to love emails, the fact remains – if you’re a legal IT professional, you’re an emailing machine whether you like it or not.

You would think with all this feverish emailing day and night from laptops, tablets, mobile devices and smartphones, we would all be experts at sending clear, concise, non-annoying email messages.  However, in this particular case, practice does NOT make perfect!

Email is convenient, quick and easy, but it can get us into trouble because there is a lot of room for misinterpretation and there are no visual or vocal cues to connote meaning.  An email tactic that is loved by some is reviled by others, so what’s a gal (or guy) to do?

I spoke with some of the best emailers I know in the legal technology industry, asking them what their pointers would be to communicate effectively and create a positive impression with every message.  In the immortal words of Law & Order, here are their stories…

Kill Them with Kindness, Not ALL CAPS!
One of my favorite email buddies is Andy Adkins, President and Founder of the Legal Technology Institute and principal of Adkins Consulting Group.  I always feel better after having an email exchange with him, no matter what the subject matter may be.

Andy says, “I like to try to stay positive, even if it’s a negative email.  I always start out with ‘Hope this email finds you and yours well.’  I also try to stay professional, even with people I’ve worked with closely and with whom I have a good relationship.  Sometimes I add in a report pertaining to a recent phone call, Facebook update or heard in the grapevine.  People respond more to honey than they do vinegar.”

Andy’s email pet peeves include:

• PEOPLE WHO WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS! (WHY ARE THEY SHOUTING??)
• Old or irrelevant subject heads that have nothing to do with the email’s content
• People who send huge unsolicited attachments like photos, etc. – they clog up the works big time!

Don’t Email in Anger, Be Concise, and Get Out of Your Chair!
Christine Musil of Informative Graphics is a great emailer because she covers all the bases, communicates clearly, and lets you know exactly what she needs while maintaining a pleasant demeanor.  Christine advises, “Let potentially sensitive emails sit at least a few hours, if not overnight, before sending.  I have unintentionally upset people by being too fact-oriented without realizing I was coming across as antagonistic.  Best to re-read some emails with fresh eyes before sending.”

Christine’s email “don’ts” include:

• Don’t be lazy!  Don’t email people when you can easily walk down the hall or pick up the phone and talk to them in person.  Sometimes face-to-face or verbal communication is still best.
• Be concise and to the point, but keep the human element by liberal use of smiley faces and winks to make sure people know that your intention is light-hearted and not demanding.

Keep it Clean, Cover Many Bases and No Chain Mail, Please!
Jeff Brandt, legal technology expert and editor of the PinHawk Law Technology Daily Digest, is a very clear and to-the-point emailer, which is a very good quality indeed.  Jeff runs a tight ship when it comes to keeping up with his own emails.  He advises people to “always have a clear and concise subject line and always try to leave the office with a clean in-box.  Set up folders for follow-up tasks, read later or other classifications.”  Brandt suggests that you keep email clean such that it would not embarrass you if it were printed on the front page of the New York Times.

For legal IT professionals who have to communicate system maintenance or repair work, Jeff suggests a combined approach to cover a wide range of email preferences.  He explains, “When working in legal IT, you often have to communicate system maintenance or repair work.  Balancing the communication between those users who want ‘just the bare facts’ and those that want ‘copious detail’ can be tough.  I finally settled on providing the bare details in the body of the email and the details in an attachment.  It’s the closest you can get to having your cake and eating it, too.”

Jeff is most annoyed by:

• People who forward him chain mails (I’m right there with you, Jeff!)
• Emails where the entire message is in the Subject line
• Those who don’t know the difference between Reply and Reply to All

Death to Smiley and Exclamation Points ! :-( !
And now here comes the big finish, and this one hits home.  Ian Levit of Levit & James is one of the funniest people I know, and whenever I see him, I immediately smile and usually I laugh, too. I can’t help it because he’s basically the Groucho Marx of legal technology.  And yet, as it turns out, Ian doesn’t like all the smiley faces and exclamation points in my emails after all.  They drive him crazy, in fact.  Oh man…

My staff and I figured if I could get a dollar for every smiley face I’ve sent to Ian in the past year, we could take a company trip to the Bahamas as part of a new “Frequent Smiler Program” that we would like to suggest to American Airlines.  And yet, if I had not written this article and asked him, I never would have known to stop.

The moral of the story here is that it’s a good idea to ask people the question, “Are you annoyed by my emailing style?” on a periodic basis so you can get the straight talk about where you’ve been going wrong.  Some people love smiley faces, but others want to strangle their perky senders.

Ask co-workers, colleagues and clients if they can give you some tips, and this gives them a chance to tell you if you’ve been inadvertently driving them insane.  In the long run, it’s better to know if you’re irritating someone you communicate with on a regular basis.  If you’re a pebble in someone’s shoe, they want the pebble removed as soon as possible, know what I’m saying?

Net Message
The upshot here is that email is here to stay, so do what you can to do it well, and to minimize the risk of alienating people with your quirky messaging habits.  Our experts have all said that people have short attention spans, so the clearer and shorter you can make your message, and the more applicable the subject line can be, the better off you’ll be in the long run.  The fabulous Betiayn Tursi, who was my editor when I wrote a column for Marketing the Law Firm for several years, used to write a unique subject for every single email she created, and I loved that and looked forward to every message she sent me.

As you try to navigate through people’s tricky gauntlets of what they love and what they hate, you’ll eventually have to settle on your own style and be true to yourself.  You can’t please all of the people all the time, so just try to please most of the people most of the time, and you’ll come out ahead.  Happy emailing! And please use the comment box below to share your own email tips and pet peeves!