E-mail correspondence between firms is not paperless.

One must include a paper copy of every e-mail on the file.

In practice, I find that e-mails use more paper than physical letters.

E-mail is to be encouraged to speed transactions up and ease communication between firms, particularly in substantial commercial matters.

However we have found that e-mail procedures adopted by some solicitors generate unnecessary paperwork.

When one replies to an e-mail, the programme as a default includes the text of the original with the reply.

I have seen a message of just three or four lines taking up several sheets of paper; paper taken up with all the previous course of correspondence, and the repeated copies of each firm's standard e-mail footer.

This is a thoroughgoing waste of paper and leaves files much thicker than they should be.

All e-mails, in or out, are already placed on the file.

We do not need this endless duplication and re-duplication.

I hope that solicitors can henceforth adopt the practice of deleting the original message text when replying to an e-mail.

Apart from benefits for the environment and for our stationery budgets, it will allow us to remove much dead weight from our files.

Rupert Barnes, Bowling & Co, London