Here are some practical tips – some that you may not have considered – for maximizing the utility and safety of email communication:

1. Consider Confidentiality. Always assume that other people can have access to your emails. Very few emails are confidential; thus, don’t send emails that contain information you don’t want people (aside from your intended recipient) to read. Emails between you and your attorney (at the exclusion of other recipients) are presumed to be confidential under most circumstances. However, if you send an email to your attorney and copy a third party, it is no longer confidential.

2. Don’t Turn Your Attorney into a Witness. When you send an email to someone, and you want your attorney to receive it, don’t put your attorney’s email address in the “Cc” line. Instead, put your attorney’s email address in the “Bcc” line or, after you send the original email, separately forward it to your attorney.

3. Don’t Make Email Your Only Means of Sending Emergency Messages. Sometimes we forget that not everyone spends every waking hour in front of a computer screen reading their email. For example, attorneys may not be able to read their emails because they are in meetings with clients, in court, or otherwise out of the office. So what do you do if you want to make sure if your attorney has received your message and is dealing with your issue right away? Take the “old school” approach: Call him and talk to him personally.

4. Let Your Recipient Know Who’s Writing to Them. Be sure to clearly identify yourself by name in your email and provide alternate contact information. Otherwise, the recipient may have no idea who you are or why you are emailing them. If you receive an email from “golferdude33@yahoo.com” saying “Hey, call me right away, I need to talk to you” and don’t get a name, phone number or address, would you know what the sender wants or who it is? Further, savvy recipients are reluctant to respond because sending anonymous unsolicited emails is a favorite trick of scammers. If you are a corporation or LLC, always include the “Inc.” or “LLC” after your company’s name in your email.

5. Don’t Go “Dark.” If you commonly communicate by email to a recipient, you are giving that recipient the expectation that they can also communicate to you by email. Sending emails to a recipient and then ignoring their responding emails can quickly erode the recipient’s confidence in you and detract from your relationship with them.

6. Don’t Assume that Emails Are Not Binding. Many states have enacted laws providing that “electronic signatures” are binding. In some cases merely identifying yourself can be interpreted as an “electronic signature.” Therefore, be very careful what you include in email messages, because your emailed promises, representations, etc., can be just as binding as if they were in a written, hard-copy contract. Emails can be even riskier than written contracts because people typically take less time thinking about what they write in an email than when drafting a traditional contract.

7. Don’t Attach Files in Strange Formats. Recipients normally don’t have any problems opening standard attachments, such as Word, Excel, PDF, JPG or MPEG files. But attachments in other formats may take a lot of time to convert and view by the recipient. If you want the recipient to open the attachment, make it easy for them by including attachments that are in common formats or can be opened using programs with which they are familiar.

8. Don’t Attach Huge Files. The email systems of some Internet service providers (ISPs) get bogged down when forced to deliver attachments larger than 5 megabytes. If your attachment is too big to handle, your email may bounce back to you with an error message or, worse, simply get thrown into the Internet version of the “dead letter” room. If you’re going to send more than 5 Mb worth of information to an email recipient, call them first and let them know so they can tell you if they would prefer that you break the email into separate parts, send them a CD with the material, or use another method of transmission, such as Dropbox.com or Yousendit.com.

9. Always Use Confidentiality Notices. In addition to displaying your name and other appropriate contact information, you should include a confidentiality notice – especially when you are sending information you consider to be confidential. When you are sending information to your attorney, put “To My Attorney” and “Confidential” in the Subject line and in the body of the email. For example, if there is a lawsuit and the opposing attorney comes across an email from you that is addressed to your attorney, states that your attorney is the intended recipient, and states that it the content of the email is confidential, the opposing attorney has the obligation to ignore the email, return the original to the you, and destroy any copies. However, if there’s nothing in the email to notify him that it is attorney-client privileged, he may read and circulate your message and use in the litigation against you without you ever knowing that the opposing side is using your confidential information.

Do you have questions? Contact Phil Glasscock at 480-941-4359 or jpg@jpglaw.com.