Any lawyers on? When you’re emailing or messaging with other lawyers, do you ever discuss potentially sensitive issues?

[Anonymous]

Or do you always use the phone? A junior lawyer started working in my group- in house- and she will not write anything remotely/potentially sensitive in an email- to other internal lawyers even. For clarity, I’m not talking about outside our company or even to internal clients (most people mark those ACC/P if sensitive).

But comms to other in house lawyers is a significant percentage of our work, so it’s very inefficient.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

"Sensitive" is too vague to be useful here. You need to be more specific.

[Anonymous]

I am really, really careful about this due to how many times I have, as a litigator, found smoking guns in emails. Privilege isn't always relevant to my sensitivity on this, because it is not absolute. I've worked on several cases where documents the lawyers believed at the time would be protected by privilege ultimately weren't.

[Anonymous]

Fed here. Soooo many Fed lawyers won’t give any advice whatsoever in emails. It’s frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fed here. Soooo many Fed lawyers won’t give any advice whatsoever in emails. It’s frustrating.

I love giving advice in emails because then when ish hits the fan you have ot writing what your advice was. Also how many times have you had a conversation where multiple understood it differently?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really, really careful about this due to how many times I have, as a litigator, found smoking guns in emails. Privilege isn't always relevant to my sensitivity on this, because it is not absolute. I've worked on several cases where documents the lawyers believed at the time would be protected by privilege ultimately weren't.

To other internal lawyers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really, really careful about this due to how many times I have, as a litigator, found smoking guns in emails. Privilege isn't always relevant to my sensitivity on this, because it is not absolute. I've worked on several cases where documents the lawyers believed at the time would be protected by privilege ultimately weren't.

I can only assume you mean non lawyer emails. Obviously. Different animal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really, really careful about this due to how many times I have, as a litigator, found smoking guns in emails. Privilege isn't always relevant to my sensitivity on this, because it is not absolute. I've worked on several cases where documents the lawyers believed at the time would be protected by privilege ultimately weren't.

I can only assume you mean non lawyer emails. Obviously. Different animal

Privilege is not absolute. And just because an attorney believed an email was privileged at the time doesn't mean a judge will agree during in camera review.

I'm an attorney, and I am careful about what I put into emails. If I think something could be misconstrued, it's a phone call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really, really careful about this due to how many times I have, as a litigator, found smoking guns in emails. Privilege isn't always relevant to my sensitivity on this, because it is not absolute. I've worked on several cases where documents the lawyers believed at the time would be protected by privilege ultimately weren't.

I can only assume you mean non lawyer emails. Obviously. Different animal

+1. Another litigator here. Internal emails among exclusively lawyers (even if in-house lawyers) are not something that “many times” end up discoverable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or do you always use the phone? A junior lawyer started working in my group- in house- and she will not write anything remotely/potentially sensitive in an email- to other internal lawyers even. For clarity, I’m not talking about outside our company or even to internal clients (most people mark those ACC/P if sensitive).

But comms to other in house lawyers is a significant percentage of our work, so it’s very inefficient.

Thoughts?

She sounds very junior and like she thinks she’s being very lawyerly/cautious when really it shows she lacks judgment and experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really, really careful about this due to how many times I have, as a litigator, found smoking guns in emails. Privilege isn't always relevant to my sensitivity on this, because it is not absolute. I've worked on several cases where documents the lawyers believed at the time would be protected by privilege ultimately weren't.

I can only assume you mean non lawyer emails. Obviously. Different animal

Privilege is not absolute. And just because an attorney believed an email was privileged at the time doesn't mean a judge will agree during in camera review.

I'm an attorney, and I am careful about what I put into emails. If I think something could be misconstrued, it's a phone call.

In-house lawyers cannot effectively support a business with this kind of extremely inefficient risk-averse posture. Far-fetched scenarios about potential litigation should not drive everything. Write an email to your colleagues like a normal person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am really, really careful about this due to how many times I have, as a litigator, found smoking guns in emails. Privilege isn't always relevant to my sensitivity on this, because it is not absolute. I've worked on several cases where documents the lawyers believed at the time would be protected by privilege ultimately weren't.

I can only assume you mean non lawyer emails. Obviously. Different animal

Privilege is not absolute. And just because an attorney believed an email was privileged at the time doesn't mean a judge will agree during in camera review.

I'm an attorney, and I am careful about what I put into emails. If I think something could be misconstrued, it's a phone call.

In-house lawyers cannot effectively support a business with this kind of extremely inefficient risk-averse posture. Far-fetched scenarios about potential litigation should not drive everything. Write an email to your colleagues like a normal person.

Depends on your experience, I guess. I was in house for ~15 years. And yes, email was often easier, especially when dealing with significant differences in time zones or co-workers in other countries for whom English was a second language. But I also saw multiple problems created that could have been avoided by a phone call instead of a hastily written and poorly phrased email. And the belief that many non-lawyer coworkers had that any email marked "privileged" with in house counsel cc'd was absolutely protected from discovery created multiple headaches.

It may depend on how frequently your company is involved in litigation. For us, litigation was not a far-fetched possibility but a continuing occurrence, due at least in part to our size and the nature of our business (media/tech) rather than any misdoing on our part. A hasty email could be extremely expensive down the road.

I'm not saying that everything had to be a phone call. But definitely phone calls and meetings to discuss things, followed by a professional email summarizing the discussion, were best for sensitive discussions that could be misconstrued if taken out of context. And of course, it's a judgement call as to what is sensitive enough to require the extra effort to be handled that way. That judgement is part of the value that in house counsel brings to the table.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or do you always use the phone? A junior lawyer started working in my group- in house- and she will not write anything remotely/potentially sensitive in an email- to other internal lawyers even. For clarity, I’m not talking about outside our company or even to internal clients (most people mark those ACC/P if sensitive).

But comms to other in house lawyers is a significant percentage of our work, so it’s very inefficient.

Thoughts?

Shouldn't use either for confidential stuff. Any kid can modify a receiver to pick up cordless calls and even cellular calls. Emails can easily be monitored or hacked.

[Anonymous]

Almost end of career lawyer here. Never would I ever put sensitive information in writing. And, like PP, as a litigator, I scour emails because so many people put so much in emails that they shouldn’t. This is not a junior lawyer issue and if your junior lawyer is holding this position, give them a raise.