I get a lot of email. Fortunately, I’m blessed to be the recipient of professional emails 99% of the time. But the other 1% is what I want to talk about in this blog.
In the good old days, if a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant wanted to send a business communication to an attorney-client, they had to address an envelope, physically place their work-product into that envelope and surrender that same envelope to a delivery service such as a courier, the U.S. Postal Service or FedEx. There was plenty of time to complete the draft of that correspondence and make sure it was not only complete, but also perfectly composed before it was sent to the patiently waiting recipient.
Some days I love email. Other days, I believe it represents the end of intelligent life on earth. Email, like texting, allows us to communicate in real time without the hassle of actually speaking to another person and therein lies the rub.
Attorneys were probably the last group of professionals to embrace email. For years they hid behind their assistants and never touched a computer, much less sent or received an email. While I still know a few dinosaurs, for most attorneys today, email is the preferred form of communication.
Get to the point quickly. Email is not a replacement for face-to-face communications and it’s not the place for long messages. You shouldn’t be sending the equivalent of a comprehensive legal nurse consulting report in the body of an email. Remember, a lot of attorneys read their email on their BlackBerries and don’t want to be scrolling and scrolling. If you need to send a large report or document, simply attach it to your email in Word or PDF format and put an executive summary in the email body. Break your email into short, succinct paragraphs. If your email has a point, and it should, get to it quickly without a lot of rambling. Attorneys like matter-of-fact, straight forward communications. That’s another reason to edit your email before you send it.
Check the “To:” line before you send and don’t hit “Reply to All” unless you know who “all” really is. This is a great way to send an email to the wrong people (perhaps even the opposing side). If you use the “auto-fill” feature for addresses it will fill in the email addresses as you start typing. If you have any attorney-clients with similar names, you need to be extra careful.
*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
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