General Practice, Solo, and Small Firm Division
Solo
Winter 2003 vol. 9 Number 2
Convincing Others You're a Perfect Idiot with E-Mail
By Jennifer J. Rose
Who hasn't received e-mail like this? The subject line is
blank, and there's absolutely no reference to prior
correspondence. "Loophole Louie" thinks his moniker and e-mail
address are downright clever. Now, if I hadn't received e-mail
before from Loophole, I'd probably delete the message without
opening it. Fortunately (or not), I know Loophole, so I open it.
And I can almost always predict what it will contain: absolutely
nothing understandable.
In real life, Louie's a great lawyer, a gentleman, and a scholar,
widely respected by his peers. He may have been the first in his
law school class and the last to touch a keyboard, but his e-mail
privileges ought to be permanently revoked. Poor Louie. Not
realizing that his e-mail has the lifespan of toxic waste, he
commits digital sins that he'd never inflict upon his finest
engraved Crane's Crest watermarked bond.
Where did Louie go wrong?
1. His computer is set to the wrong year,
ensuring that his message will be buried in the recipient's
inbox, away from the current mail.
2. He's mixed business with pleasure. Nicknames
and cute e-mail addresses are fine for personal e-mails, but
should never appear on business correspondence.
3. Louie's use of a MSN Hotmail address signals
to his clients and other lawyers that he considers e-mail a
disposable medium. For all we know, his office phone could be a
pay phone at the local Laundromat. Even if he changes ISPs with
the frequency of his socks, he could obtain a classier e-mail
alias such as abanet.org, available to ABA members at
www.abanet.org/mo/emailguide.html.
4. The subject line should never be left
blank.
5. E-mail deserves the same attention to
spelling, grammar, and proofreading that would be paid to regular
correspondence.
6. The body of his message only hints at prior
correspondence. What is perfectly clear to Louie creates a
guessing game for the recipient. At the very least, quote the
prior correspondence below.
7. In his dash to jot off e-mail in his bathrobe
in the middle of the night, Louie has forgotten that the
recipient may be asleep and not download the message until much
later. E-mail isn't a substitute for other forms of
communication. Sometimes the telephone or fax is a better method
for getting across an urgent message.
8. In the early days of e-mail, ASCII art and
inspirational quotes marked the sender as sophisticated and
intellectual. Today, those add-ons are simply detritus,
contributing nothing to the message. All of the time Louie spent
hunting down a Voltaire quote would've been better spent in
creating a simple signature that reveals his real name, address,
and phone number.
9. Would Louie dare send out the same
correspondence on his office letterhead? If there was any doubt
in the recipient's mind about his capabilities, his e-mail
certainly resolved that, and not in Louie's favor. The style and
tenor of his e-mail makes the reader wonder if he sends out
office correspondence scrawled on a napkin from a fast-food
restaurant.
In his rush to embrace e-mail, Loophole has forgotten his
manners. E-mail is a quick and cheap means of communication, but
that doesn't mean that the basics of written correspondence
should be tossed aside. Who doesn't know a clown like Louie who's
trashed his reputation with sloppy and rude e-mail?
jennifer j. rose, editor-in-chief of GPSolo, scrutinizes
others' e-mail at jenniferrose@abanet.org.
