Emailing with Your Attorney

Communicating with your attorney is hard. We’re busy. You’re busy. Email seems like the easiest way to go but it isn’t always effective. Here are some basic guidelines for emailing with your attorney:

1. If the email will take more than five minutes to read and reply to, it needs to be a phone call. You shouldn’t want to pay your attorney to engage in extensive emails back and forth. For anything more complicated a quick email to your attorney giving them 2 or 3 days/times you are available for a quick phone call over the next two days works great. Then your attorney can pick one of those times and you can clear up misunderstandings, ask questions, etc. by phone.
2. If you are angry, don’t email just call. If you are angry about what’s going on in your case whether it be that you are mad at your spouse, mad at the attorney or mad at the attorney’s staff your email will not really relay the depth of your anger.
3. Don’t email multiple times per day. When you email multiple times per day it costs you more money. Also, the more emails you send the less likely it is that your attorney will take you seriously. It’s Sally, she emails at least five times per day. It’s surely not an emergency or so goes the thought process. Then, when it really is an emergency and Sally emails she doesn’t get a quick response.
4. Put all of your questions, comments, etc. in one email. For both you and the attorney it’s important to deal with all business related to your case in one email. Even if you receive multiple emails from the attorney’s office try to reply to all issues in one email. Ask all of your questions you need to ask but try to put them in one email or set up a phone call.
5. Don’t reply okay. Your attorney gets many, many emails over the course of the day. Look at your response and decide whether you really need to send it. Your attorney is busy, and you want her working on your case whenever possible. You don’t want her to be spending time reading lots of emails that say “okay” or “great” or are a joke or one sentence that isn’t particularly helpful or relevant to your case.

I hope this helps you in having better email communication with your attorney.