Attorneys - Settle This - The Use of Esquire When it is Obvious You Are An Attorney

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work at an agency where people in non attorney positions were constantly putting "Esquire" in their signature. Every time I see it I have to stop them. If you're not in an attorney position, you shouldn't use it. No one cares that you went to law school- you don't have attorney client privilege.

We have in house legal positions that do have attorney client privilege where the title may not make it obvious to someone whether they are an attorney (e.g., Senior Patent Director). They usually signal their status by putting "JD, PhD" in their signature (when true) instead of Esq, but it is absolutely helpful if their email signature makes it clear that they are an attorney. It's not unusual that we'll collect someone's emails 5-15 years later for a litigation, long after they've left the organization, and need to filter for privileged emails.

I hope you understand how problematic it is to rely on someone's signature line containing "JD PhD". That fails to indicate either that the person is even an attorney or that the person is an attorney for the corporation. Merely being licensed as an attorney doesn't mean that the communications would be privileged.

+1. Becomes a discovery battle nightmare in litigation. Putting JD, PhD by a name doesn't make the communication attorney-client privileged.

[Anonymous]

Hate it. I never use it because it's really pretentious. I worked with someone who always signed with "Jane Doe, Esq." and she was a nightmare human.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hate it. I never use it because it's really pretentious. I worked with someone who always signed with "Jane Doe, Esq." and she was a nightmare human.

Interesting that you can't manage to see that there might be circumstances you are unfamiliar with in which it makes sense to use Esq. Or that there are people who use it who are not "a nightmare human." You must have attended a crappy law school if you can't manage to see beyond your own tiny circumstances and the personality of one "human."

[Anonymous]

I have worked with several Black attorneys who use Esq. in their signature block, and they aren’t pretentious at all. I have wondered if they did it because they had trouble with people assuming they aren’t the lawyers on the team because of their race. I would look for another way to signal that, I think, because there is no circumstance in which “Esq.” doesn’t look silly, but I’m sure they had good reasons because they were reasonable people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have worked with several Black attorneys who use Esq. in their signature block, and they aren’t pretentious at all. I have wondered if they did it because they had trouble with people assuming they aren’t the lawyers on the team because of their race. I would look for another way to signal that, I think, because there is no circumstance in which “Esq.” doesn’t look silly, but I’m sure they had good reasons because they were reasonable people.

This is interesting—I recently started working with a group of mostly black attorneys and noticed that they use it way more than all the old white guys I’ve worked for in the past.

[Anonymous]

As a big law and government attorney with strong credentials, I would never use it, except perhaps in personal correspondence with the IRS, a home owners association, or the like. As others have noted, it seems redundant at best, pompous or rube-like at worst. If I were a solo practitioner trying to impress less sophisticated clients, I'd probably look at it differently.

[Anonymous]

We are told not to use it unless you’re in the attorney job series. If you can’t give legal advice and would not have attorney client privilege, you shouldn’t use it. It’s confusing to others. No one cares if you’re a chief of staff who went to law school. I’m a fed and my agency doesn’t want it to be used by those outside of the general counsel office. They will tell you to cease using it.

[Anonymous]

We all use “attorney-advisor”. No one uses esquire

[Anonymous]

Esq isn’t supposed to be used by the signing individual, it’s to be used by the person addressing the credentialed individual. So I’m writing a letter to Lara Doe who is a lawyer. I have two options Mrs/Ms. Larla Doe or Larla Doe, Esq. Larla Doe never refers to herself as Esq.

That is the proper use of Esq.

[Anonymous]

I am in Biglaw. All our partners use Esq. in their email signatures, and so do many counsels and associates.

But the email signatures do not otherwise include their titles. So it's not redundant.

Frankly, I'm not sure why they use Esq. instead of their titles. My guess is that it is to prevent people from assessing hierarchy based on titles in the email signature (i.e., unless you know us, you can't tell if the email you've received is from a partner, counsel, or associate). I like that.

I agree it would be annoying to use Esq. when it's "obvious" that you are an attorney, but not if you're using Esq. as the only signal that you're an attorney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's an honorific form of address, used to address someone but not used to describe oneself. So it's acceptable (albeit pompous) to address someone as e.g. "Jane Doe, Esq." but not acceptable to sign in this way ("Sincerely yours, Jane Doe").

This is the correct answer. If you truly want everyone to know, you put J.D. in your signature (but that’s also pompous, IMO)

If someone put J.D. in their signature I would assume they had graduated law school but not (yet?) passed the bar. Not that they were a practicing attorney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work at an agency where people in non attorney positions were constantly putting "Esquire" in their signature. Every time I see it I have to stop them. If you're not in an attorney position, you shouldn't use it. No one cares that you went to law school- you don't have attorney client privilege.

We have in house legal positions that do have attorney client privilege where the title may not make it obvious to someone whether they are an attorney (e.g., Senior Patent Director). They usually signal their status by putting "JD, PhD" in their signature (when true) instead of Esq, but it is absolutely helpful if their email signature makes it clear that they are an attorney. It's not unusual that we'll collect someone's emails 5-15 years later for a litigation, long after they've left the organization, and need to filter for privileged emails.

I hope you understand how problematic it is to rely on someone's signature line containing "JD PhD". That fails to indicate either that the person is even an attorney or that the person is an attorney for the corporation. Merely being licensed as an attorney doesn't mean that the communications would be privileged.

+1. Becomes a discovery battle nightmare in litigation. Putting JD, PhD by a name doesn't make the communication attorney-client privileged.

Of course that isn't the end of the inquiry. It's just a flag that helps in the eDiscovery search and increases the chances that the email gets closer review. It does help and it certainly isn't what creates a fight. The preference is alway that legal advice is tagged as privileged, but that doesn't always happen with internal communications. Having something in the email signature is helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am in Biglaw. All our partners use Esq. in their email signatures, and so do many counsels and associates.

But the email signatures do not otherwise include their titles. So it's not redundant.

Frankly, I'm not sure why they use Esq. instead of their titles. My guess is that it is to prevent people from assessing hierarchy based on titles in the email signature (i.e., unless you know us, you can't tell if the email you've received is from a partner, counsel, or associate). I like that.

I agree it would be annoying to use Esq. when it's "obvious" that you are an attorney, but not if you're using Esq. as the only signal that you're an attorney.

Yet another example of people using it for a good reason.

I'm convinced all of the noise here about it being pretentious or redundant or whatever is from the usual contingent of people who aren't actually lawyers but play them on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work at an agency where people in non attorney positions were constantly putting "Esquire" in their signature. Every time I see it I have to stop them. If you're not in an attorney position, you shouldn't use it. No one cares that you went to law school- you don't have attorney client privilege.

We have in house legal positions that do have attorney client privilege where the title may not make it obvious to someone whether they are an attorney (e.g., Senior Patent Director). They usually signal their status by putting "JD, PhD" in their signature (when true) instead of Esq, but it is absolutely helpful if their email signature makes it clear that they are an attorney. It's not unusual that we'll collect someone's emails 5-15 years later for a litigation, long after they've left the organization, and need to filter for privileged emails.

I hope you understand how problematic it is to rely on someone's signature line containing "JD PhD". That fails to indicate either that the person is even an attorney or that the person is an attorney for the corporation. Merely being licensed as an attorney doesn't mean that the communications would be privileged.

+1. Becomes a discovery battle nightmare in litigation. Putting JD, PhD by a name doesn't make the communication attorney-client privileged.

Of course that isn't the end of the inquiry. It's just a flag that helps in the eDiscovery search and increases the chances that the email gets closer review. It does help and it certainly isn't what creates a fight. The preference is alway that legal advice is tagged as privileged, but that doesn't always happen with internal communications. Having something in the email signature is helpful.

+1

Anyone blathering on about "Putting JD in the communication doesn't make it privileged!!!" is probably not a lawyer, because any actual lawyer would know that other lawyers aren't confused about that and don't need it explained. And anyone who has had to do extensive privilege logs knows that when you have to search through a mountain of documents looking for privilege, knowing the letter or whatever came from an attorney is helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am in Biglaw. All our partners use Esq. in their email signatures, and so do many counsels and associates.

But the email signatures do not otherwise include their titles. So it's not redundant.

Frankly, I'm not sure why they use Esq. instead of their titles. My guess is that it is to prevent people from assessing hierarchy based on titles in the email signature (i.e., unless you know us, you can't tell if the email you've received is from a partner, counsel, or associate). I like that.

I agree it would be annoying to use Esq. when it's "obvious" that you are an attorney, but not if you're using Esq. as the only signal that you're an attorney.

Cornell summarizes it best. They shouldn’t be using it.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/esquire#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20esquire,the%20lawyer%20in%20written%20form.