Red flag? Company owners insist on personal e-mail when talking about sensitive company topics

[Anonymous]

Is this weird or standard to avoid litigation?

Seems like any corporate communication should be discussed on the corporate e-mail.

[Anonymous]

Your personal email will be discoverable in any litigation if you use it to talk about business issues that lead to litigation.

[Anonymous]

OMG, huge red flag. I'm a lawyer with lots of securities litigation experience and if I were on the other side of that company in litigation, and we found that out, it would be a gold mine. And by the way, using your personal email will just mean that if your company gets involved in litigation and the other side finds that out (which they will) that all of your personal emails will be subject to discovery in litigation, too. Be very, very wary OP and do not use your personal email for this purpose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG, huge red flag. I'm a lawyer with lots of securities litigation experience and if I were on the other side of that company in litigation, and we found that out, it would be a gold mine. And by the way, using your personal email will just mean that if your company gets involved in litigation and the other side finds that out (which they will) that all of your personal emails will be subject to discovery in litigation, too. Be very, very wary OP and do not use your personal email for this purpose.

Agreed!

[Anonymous]

Huge red flags. Start looking for another job, stat. Quit this one if you can afford to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huge red flags. Start looking for another job, stat. Quit this one if you can afford to.

Would it be easier just to talk over the phone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huge red flags. Start looking for another job, stat. Quit this one if you can afford to.

Would it be easier just to talk over the phone?

LOL! The people who own this company do not sound very bright.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely senseless.

[Anonymous]

Personal email accounts are not personal when it comes to litigation. Is this a small business? I can't imagine a large organization doing this. If anything, they have IM software that deletes every day or week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG, huge red flag. I'm a lawyer with lots of securities litigation experience and if I were on the other side of that company in litigation, and we found that out, it would be a gold mine. And by the way, using your personal email will just mean that if your company gets involved in litigation and the other side finds that out (which they will) that all of your personal emails will be subject to discovery in litigation, too. Be very, very wary OP and do not use your personal email for this purpose.

Agreed!

Seriously. I read that and thought, "oooh, discovery in any case against this company would be awesome!" In short -- don't do it. It may not even just be your personal emails; depending on the extent of the communications and what is sent and downloaded, it could be your personal devices, too -- computers, flash drives, whatever. Anything that reasonably could have company documents on it.

Not sure how large a company it is (sounds like probably not very) but if the company has a general counsel or a legal department, and you can let them know that you've been told to do this (anonymously perhaps, if you are worried about repercussions), you may save the company a great deal of money and embarrassment down the road. Because any competent lawyer there will immediately advise her clients never to do this.

[Anonymous]

Wow, that is terrible. At the least, I guess if your company expects you to do this, would be good to make up a new personal e-mail account for this, so that all your personal e-mail does not get dragged into any future lawsuits.

[Anonymous]

Is the topic layoffs? They might be worried about IT admins reading stuff. Still stupid. If it's anything else .... run

[Anonymous]

Anonymous



Personal email accounts are not personal when it comes to litigation. Is this a small business? I can't imagine a large organization doing this. If anything, they have IM software that deletes every day or week.

You do not have much of an imagination. Big companies do these things also.

[Anonymous]

whoever sues your company is going to win big.