LITIG: legal IT group publishes on-line guide to etiquette and tips on management

A standard good practice guide for e-mail usage by law firm staff has been made available free of charge to solicitors following research by a group of law firms.

The good practice guide and acceptable usage policy (AUP) have been complied by the Legal IT Innovators Group (Litig), from the existing policies of ten member law firms, including Bond Pearce in the south-west and regional practice Shoosmiths.

The policies are designed to be downloaded from the organisation's Web site and distributed to law firm staff.

The AUP provides warnings about the data protection ramifications of sending out personal data in spreadsheets and databases, and the copyright issues attached to software and graphics from any published format.

The good practice guide provides tips such as advising staff to blind- copy recipients when sending out e-mails to multiple parties, to avoid disclosing personal information about recipients.

It also advises against the routine use of 'read receipts' as a big brother mechanism for keeping tabs on recipients.

The receipt will not be 'evidence' that the message has been read by the recipient as it may have been opened by someone else, the guide says.

The guide provides advice on e-mail etiquette, warning that the impersonal nature of e-mail may lead to messages seeming abrupt or aggressive.

It suggests that the telephone or personal contact may be a better means of communication for difficult messages.

It points out that care must be taken when deleting e-mails, as the hard copy of an e-mail will not be accepted as reliable evidence in court - an electronic trail must also be available.

David Coates, IT director at Bond Pearce, said: 'This project is absolutely vital to law firms and their clients.

E-mail is now one of, if not the most, mission critical systems within our industry.

'The guidance is mostly common sense, but a lot of firms don't have something that spells things out for staff.

They may have a policy telling them what they can't do, but they don't have a guide to tell them about best practice.'

Rosemary Kind, director of business support IT & finance at Shoosmiths, said: 'Many organisations, whether legal or otherwise, can benefit from the best practice in use within Litig's member firms.

'The e-mail project team will move on to research further e-mail issues around spam and archiving.'

LINK: www.litig.org

Rachel Rothwell