When sending e-mail from your office, do you follow your firm’s written policy? Does your office even have a written policy? Are you letting e-mail control you — or are you using it as an effective tool to serve clients? And what about employee access?

Most small law offices’ e-mail policy consists of providing internet access or not, rather than defining the circumstances under which it is appropriate to use this tool. There’s just not a lot of guidance out there.

I’m often asked by partners, “Do other firms allow secretaries to have access to e-mail and the internet?” Then, there’s frequently this follow-up question: “How do they keep them from misusing it or spending their time online instead of getting work done?”

Just substitute an excessive number of personal telephone calls during work and most business owners would recognize this as a personnel issue, not a technological one.

We’ve all seen employees who manage their time poorly, and that’s not limited to support staff. Planning one’s work, balancing staff assignments and anticipating deadlines are learned skills. Even good lawyers can procrastinate writing that brief until it creates last-minute panic. As much as I plan my schedule, emergencies occur that interfere with having sufficient time to complete certain projects — like getting this column written before deadline, for example.

Good managers reward promptly done work rather than the number of hours worked. They have direct knowledge of the tasks required to per-form a job and give that person sufficient time to execute it well. Lawyers who don’t understand the steps necessary to prepare the firm’s bills, for ex-ample, often underestimate the time required. Too many lawyers still think someone merely presses a button on the computer to perform complex tasks. From my observations at hundreds of law firms, lawyers should do a better job managing themselves and their professional and support staff.

Attorneys let themselves be “inter-ruption driven,” with technology exacerbating the problem. The phone rings and while the call isn’t urgent, it interrupts the thinking process while crafting a letter or drafting a pleading. While some lawyers are disciplined to have calls forwarded to voice mail or handled by a secretary, many take all incoming calls.

E-mail is even more intrusive. Most programs are set to regularly check for new mail. Often, e-mail is heralded by a pop-up screen and a sound, making it hard to ignore. With few exceptions, most e-mail is neither urgent nor critical. Most people, including your clients, know the phone is more effective in a true emergency.

Consider changing your habits to check e-mail at regular intervals rather than reacting immediately to each in-coming message. You’ll be more productive and less stressed.

Policies

What’s your office’s policy regarding e-mail and internet access? If there isn’t one, begin by defining the firm’s general business goals and be sure your policy is in line with them. For example, if quality service and high client satisfaction are among the aims, the e-mail policy should support those goals by giving the staff the tools and means to quickly transmit information to clients.

I believe it’s short-sighted to limit or deny e-mail or internet access to employees. It’s important to under-stand that you and your staff have lives beyond the office. Small firms may not pay top dollar or provide the best benefits, but can offer a work environment that allows employees to balance work and home better than at larger organizations. An e-mail policy should permit the occasional personal use of office e-mail as long as it’s kept to a minimum and doesn’t interfere with getting work done.

An office e-mail policy should ad-dress confidentiality. Whether the disclaimers on faxes or e-mail have any effect is less important than ensuring the staff knows not to “reply to all” when intending to reply solely to the e-mail sender. Office policies also should discuss the need to keep client information confidential. Lessons can be learned from doctors and other professionals who are rigorous about limiting access to client or patient files. In fact, in most medical offices, patients rarely even see their own file. But who hasn’t been to a lawyer’s office and seen other clients’ documents in plain view?

If your firm doesn’t use passwords and unique staff login IDs, it’s time to implement them. Don’t leave pass-words blank; use the words “ pass-word” or “welcome” or each person’s initials. One suggestion is to use initials along with the last four digits of each employee’s Social Security number. This will make it harder for an outsider to guess. Passwords also should be changed periodically.

Storage

The policy should discuss e-mail storage. There are federal, state and lo-cal regulations concerning storage and destruction of documents, whether electronic or paper, and these include e-mail. Client confidentiality and attorney work product are of particular concern in drafting an e-mail policy. Whether and under what circum-stances e-mail should be printed and filed also should be determined and documented.

Small offices also can use an e-mail policy to teach “netiquette” — standards for sending e-mail. Some of these rules are common sense, but it’s amazing how much e-mail doesn’t follow these basic guidelines.
Make sure to check for spelling and typographical errors just as you would any correspondence. Personalize your signature to include basic information about you and your firm to make it easy for the recipient to follow up.

Make sure to include a meaningful subject. Messages with no subject are frustrating to the recipient, especially if they intend to file it and may want to refer to it again. Use capitalization sparingly. Capital letters are the e-mail equivalent of shouting and are considered rude. Be as brief as possible while being thorough. Respond to e-mail in a timely manner just as telephone calls or correspondence.

When sending messages to a group, consider sending them as a blind “Cc” so no one sees the names of others to whom the message applies. Use auto-responses carefully. If you belong to e-mail lists, you know there is nothing more annoying than having a large group of people all receiving a “so-and-so is out of the office this week” message. Finally, keep virus definitions current so you don’t pass virus-laden e-mail to clients.

So, should you give your staff e-mail and internet access? In more and more situations, such access allows staff to electronically submit documents to the courts, clients and auditing companies. Think of it as giving them the tools to do their jobs more effectively. If there’s a problem with employees spending too much time shopping online instead of handling office work, remember, you don’t have a technology problem.

Carol L. Schlein is president of Law Office Systems in Montclair, a training and consulting firm specializing in law firm automation. Copies of previous columns are on her company website, losinc.com. For information about her quarterly meetings for Time Matters users, check the website or e-mail info@losinc.com. Schlein formerly chaired the Computer and Technology Division of the ABA Law Practice Management Section.

Questions for Carol L. Schlein on law office technology may be faxed to New Jersey Lawyer at (732) 650-7010, e-mailed to news@njlnews.com or mailed to “Law Technology Questions,” New Jersey Lawyer, Edison Square, 2035 Lincoln Highway, Suite 3005, Edison, N.J. 08817.