Lost in an Inbox, Part II

As I was thinking about e-mail as a means of communication and why e-mails sometimes get sent off never to be responded to, I noticed how I use e-mail and some of the ways in which I have also been less than perfect in responding to the e-mails that arrive in my inbox. It is true that e-mail is relatively new, a fact spoofed in this weeks Onion in an article talking about uncovering an e-mail artifact from 1995, but there are so many tools available for organizing e-mails and other information that it seems a little strange that we have such a hard time keeping the information organized. I think this is mostly due to lack of understanding. Just as Einstein claimed we only used 10% of our brain, mos uf us use only 10% of the functions available on our computers. So in an attempt to create greater e-mail efficiency in my life, I set out to find the best tools. I found some advise from Richard Kuo's blog on how to manage e-mail effectively. It took me a couple of hours to work through the over 500 e-mails that had amassed in my Inbox since the Christmas Holiday, but the time was well spent. By keeping my inbox basically empty, I can actually deal with the new mail that streams in on a daily basis.

The reason I cam back to this topic is because staying organized is an important skill to develop for aspiring lawyers. Working in the law has a lot to do with the best ways to gather, organize, and process information. In addition, the law has a lot of deadlines, and for some if these deadlines, if you miss them, you can get sued. I went to a talk last semester on "how to prevent malpractice suits." The presenter, I do not remember his name, claimed that if we sat through his hour long talk, he would show us how we can reduce our chances of facing a malpractice suit by 50%. He showed us a lot of statistical data that indicated that half of all malpractice suits are filed because two things that lawyers do wrong: 1. missing an important deadline, such as a statute of limitations, which prevents a client from pursuing an otherwise valid claim; and 2. poor customer relations, where clients feel like their lawyers do not respond to their calls, e-mails, or otherwise stay in communication and keep the case organized. So learning how to organize one's e-mail is an important skill to learn in the age of the technological lawyer.