With the proliferation of e-mail, it is becoming important to regain control over e-mail and use it as an asset as opposed to a liability in the practice of law. It is predicted that e-mail will increase 3 times in one year and your storage requirements will double. Because of this, it is imperative that we are notified immediately of a client e-mail, court fax or e-mail, messages from the boss or other attorneys in your office. Junk mail or mail meant for someone else needs to be controlled to allow one to use his or her time efficiently. There are new e-mail features and techniques to handle the onslaught of e-mail.

Filtering e-mail. You can have e-mail filter into separate mailboxes created for specific e-mail or you can redirect the e-mail to a new e-mail address. Make a list of the categories of e-mail you typically receive:

• Listservs;
• Web site e-mail inquiries from potential new clients obtained from your web site or marketing material;
• Web alert services;
• Interoffice mail;
• Client mail;
• Spam e-mail - with certain words - money fast, XXX or “not a pyramid scheme”. Be sure and glance through them quickly before discarding.

After listing the categories, go into your e-mail program and set up the filtering rules. Make a test run and send yourself e-mails to see if the rules work. After a little practice in changing the rules or creating additional mailboxes, you will have a virtual mailroom working to sort through your e-mail.

Additional tips on controlling the onslaught of e-mail:

• Read all the e-mail as soon as it arrives and answer, file or delete it.
• Adopt a simple filing system for your e-mails.
• Read even long messages, otherwise you won’t get around to them later.
• Create a new set of folders or mailboxes every year and archive your old messages.
• Do not reply to every e-mail you receive.
• Send a response to a person who requests it, not to all the recipients of the e-mail.
• Antispam software is available from www.spamkiller and other companies.
• Consider having support staff review and sort e-mail.
• To maintain privacy of e-mail, insert additional recipients under the bcc section of the e-mail message.
• Use different e-mail addresses. There are free ones available at www.yahoo.com and www.hotmail.com. They can be redirected to your real address. They can also be used as a backup account or for fax service on the web. E-mail is becoming as critical as voice mail, so a few precautions. If your laptop or handheld device is inoperable, you can still obtain access to your e-mail if you have access to the web and know your Internet e-mail access protocol. This is useful when office e-mail is down.
• Wireless e-mail - New handheld devices and cell phones offer the convenience of fast Internet e-mail access and instant communication.