E-Brief Sept - Oct - The Advocates' Society

Welcome to Our
New Members
Associate
Stephen Pitel,
University of Western Ontario
Government
Alexandra K. Brown,
Department of Justice
Mary C. O'Donoghue
Information & Privacy Commissioner
Intermediate
Afshan Ali, Torys LLP
Lisa C. Alleyne, Lerners LLP
Kyle Armagon, Walker, Head
Oneal Banerjee,
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Matthew Biderman,
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Howard R. Blitstein,
Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP
Melanie L. Breen,
Regan Desjardins LLP
Patrizia I. Bruzio, Aird & Berlis
Raquel Chisholm,
Emond, Harnden LLP
Barnali Choudhury, Wardle Daley LLP
Mark E. Davis, Heenan Blaikie LLP
Rinku Deswal, Bersenas Jacobsen
Chouest Thomson Blackburn LLP
Bindu Dhaliwal,
Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP
Katherine Di Tomaso,
Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Kammy Digambar, McCague,
Peacock, Borlack, McInnis & Lloyd LLP
Brad Elberg, Heenan Blaikie LLP
Jennifer Fairfax,
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Madeline R. Ferreira,
Shibley, Righton LLP
Michael Foulds, McCague, Peacock,
Borlack, McInnis & Lloyd LLP
Stephanie Fraser, Aird & Berlis
Sal Guzzo, Fireman Barristers LLP
Theresa M. Hartley, McCague,
Peacock, Borlack, McInnis & Lloyd LLP
Lisa Holland, Sokoloff and Associates
William J. Jesseau,
Lawson McGrenere LLP
Charlotte Kanya-Forstner,
Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP
Melissa Kehrer, Beard, Winter LLP
Kerri Knudsen, Adair Morse LLP
Continued on page 5...
TECHNO-TALK: Send Fewer E-mails,
and Help Save World Productivity
By Dan Pinnington,
Director, practicePRO, LAWPRO
E-mail is an essential tool for clients, lawyers and
law office staff alike. It allows easy and virtually
instant exchanges of information and, for many,
has become a preferred way of communicating. In
North America alone, tens of billions of e-mail messages
are sent every day. That's not a typo - read
“b” for billions. All those messages end up in e-mail
inboxes, including yours and mine. As a result, we
all are trying desperately to cope with the amount
of e-mail we are receiving. If it gets much worse,
the Internet may grind to a halt.
Time to think globally and act locally
Dan Pinnington
If every member of The Advocates' Society sent
one less message each business day, that would be almost one million fewer e-
mails over the next year. Amazing! We all have a tendency to send and reply to e-
mail messages when it is not absolutely necessary. E-mails are just so darn easy to
create and send. It’s time to put some thought into what has become an almost
thoughtless task.
Stop Loading Up Those Address Lines
Lets start with the “To:” line. Don't just slam a bunch of names in there. Ask yourself
who really needs to get the message. Include those names, and leave the rest out.
Next up: the carbon copy or "CC" line. It is intended to be helpful, but can actually be
quite dangerous. We all start with good intentions and start adding names, sometimes
for reasons that are somewhat unrelated to the actual message. Gotta show
the senior partner I’m working on her file. Gotta show the boss I'm working on a
Saturday. Resist the temptation! If they aren't on the “To:” line already, it probably
means something. Ask yourself who really needs to be CC'd on this message.
Include those names, and leave the rest out.
The next target: "Reply-to-all." It does make it dead easy to reply to everyone that
got the original message, but don't use reply-to-all just because you can. Ask yourself
if everyone that got this message in the first place really needs to see a reply
from you. Odds are, the answer is probably not; and, if you were only CC'd on the
original message, I would suggest the answer is most likely not.
Consider a message with a meeting invitation that asks for an RSVP. Is it really necessary
to let everyone know that you can or can't make it? In many cases, it will be
just fine to reply only to the person who sent the invitation.
Don't Abuse Your Address Groups
Distribution lists or e-mail address groups are potentially the most evil. They make it
a simple and mindless task to send e-mail messages to tens, hundreds or even
thousands of people. I can't argue with the fact that from an efficiency point of view it
makes sense to put people you frequently e-mail in a group under one address. You
just need to use distribution lists with a bit of care and discretion.
The “All Users,” “Everyone” and other global address groups built into many e-mail
systems are pretty much Armageddon. Anything that permits any single employee
to interrupt every other person in the firm should be illegal; indeed, many firms limit
access to the global address groups, and some kill them outright. No doubt, in a few
(Continued on page 5)
4 VOLUME 17, NO. 1, SUMMER 2005