People tend to forget that you can give off just as good or bad a first impression from the quality of your emails as you can by delivering more substantive documents. It’s therefore essential that you learn how to draft highly professional emails and avoid the mistakes that lawyers often make.

Emails should generally be as clear and concise as possible. Always consider whether your supervisor is likely to read your email on their mobile phone; if so, an essay won’t be appropriate. For longer emails, adopt a clear structure that enables the recipients to quickly identify the key information that is relevant to them. To that end, you could include headings throughout, ensure key information is underlined or in bold (e.g. deadlines), use bullet points where necessary (which can make it easier to take in the information on a quick skim), make it very clear if you need specific people to review or take action in relation to particular points (I sometimes write “@Name” next to specific comments or queries to ensure the person reads it, especially where a number of others are copied into the email), and so on.

Always use a helpful subject line (e.g. not just “Hi” or “Legal work”). This will help the recipient to decide whether the email needs to be opened right away (and therefore help them to prioritise their time), whilst also ensuring both you and your supervisor will be able to more easily find the email in the future if you need to reference its content. Consider starting with the project name (supervisors are likely to be juggling multiple matters at once, so this helps to give immediate context), followed by a description of what the email relates to, for instance “Project Cockerel – Director Appointments”. Perhaps avoid using client names in subject lines, as this might have confidentiality-related implications if those emails are being read in public places.

Common mistakes

There are so many things that can go wrong when sending emails, so below is a list of common mistakes. Burn this list into your brain and avoid the easily-avoidable!

• Forwarding an email chain with stray comments: read the entire email chain before sending an email in case you end up sending something (usually buried at the bottom of the chain) that was not supposed to be reviewed by one of the recipients. Comments about clients, internal jokes, confidential information; you name it, it has happened!
• Forgetting to attach attachments: ensure attachments that you have said are attached are actually attached. I can almost guarantee that you will make this mistake during a training contract anyway (many of us did on numerous occasions), but try your best not to. Moreover, if you are attaching a link to a document contained on the firm’s centralised work space, also include a “local” copy of the document (i.e. a downloaded version of the document), in case the recipient is unable to access the link (for instance, if working on their mobile phone).
• Accidentally hitting reply all: triple check that the email addresses in the “To:”, “CC:” and “BCC:” boxes are correct before sending an email. This is essential if you tend to use the “reply all” function as a starting point when writing new emails that aren’t actually intended for all previous recipients. You can very easily end up accidentally emailing the whole trainee intake – or worse, the whole firm worldwide – as this author (and many of his friends) have done by accident in the past! If you have a history of making this mistake, or don’t trust yourself, it can be safer to instead click “forward” rather than “reply” or “reply all” (so all recipients disappear), write your email in the draft box that appears, then manually add all the desired recipients. Make sure you don’t then miss people out however!
• Emailing the wrong individuals: you’re also at risk of sending emails to the wrong recipients if your email client auto completes names. People with similar names may be (and frequently are) accidentally added to emails, which can result in confusion at the best of times, and the accidental sharing of sensitive information at the worst of times. People also often forget to copy in someone who they have said, in the main body of the email, that they have copied in.
• Misjudging your tone of voice: sometimes your tone may come across in unanticipated ways via written communication (including email), and this can cause things to escalate unnecessarily. Never send an email when angry, and if you’re in a rush, take a second to consider whether your chosen words might come across as rude or abrasive, rather than concise.
• Mistakes that slip through the net: no matter how many times you have proofed your email, you will be surprised at how often you notice a mistake right after clicking send. To mitigate this risk, consider setting a 1 minute delay on your email outbox to give you one final opportunity to correct mistakes.

John Trimbos: it’s worth bearing in mind that some of the most commonly misspelled names are: Jo/Joe, Lesley/Leslie, Catherine/Katherine and Stephen/Steven. People can understandably be sensitive about this!

In addition, unless you are told otherwise, you should always copy in a more senior colleague to important emails. This helps them to keep abreast of what’s going on and improves the chances of a mistake being picked up at an early stage (you might be able to recall the email if it has not already been read by all the recipients), plus you might be required to keep a supervisor copied from a compliance perspective anyway.

Top tips

In light of the above, when sending out any email – internally or externally – always bear the following questions in mind:

1. Would you be happy to see the email on the front page of a newspaper or in Court (bar any confidentiality issues)? 

2. Should you deliver this message by email, or would a phone call be more effective or efficient? If in doubt, call.

3. Are you definitely sending the email to only the intended recipients? 

4. Does your email have a helpful, descriptive subject line?

5. Will all recipients clearly understand your message and is it clear what you want each recipient to do? 

6. Have you carefully proofread the email? 

7. Have you attached any necessary attachments and if so, will the recipients know what to do with them? 

9. Is the confidentiality of the contents appropriately protected?