Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1596
www.iltanet.org E-Mail Life Cycle 15 Get users exited about a new plan by identifying shortcomings in your existing process. As an alternative, you could show how other organizations have suffered as a result of mediocre management of records and e-mail. and nOW . . . LET's anaLyzE ThaT unRuLy InbOx When e-mail arrives, how is it managed? Where does it go? How is it tracked? Can you find what you think you have? And when you say you don't have something, are you certain? There is no single industry fix that would work for all firms, but certainly there is a fundamental approach for designing effective-mail management practices. Your analysis should ascertain how e-mail is managed throughout the firm. Think about your firm's short-term and long-term goals. Are universal records management applications encompassing all of your firm's records? This might not be the right option for you now, but you might want to do the groundwork for what could ultimately become your strategic plan. Much like paper, not all e-mail is germane to practicing law or running a law firm. Some e-mail messages need to be treated as transitory and informative only. The end users are responsible for determining relevance. They rely on their knowledge of the information provided, their circumstances and the work at hand. dEvELOP a sTRaTEgy TO ManagE shORT- TERM MEssagEs Short-term e-mail messages are those that are personal or only informational, with no long-lasting client/matter/ business significance. In a perfect world, all unofficial e-mail messages would be read, their information noted, and then they would be deleted. Here, the e-mail isn't the record, it's just the messenger; and we receive many, many of these e-mail messages that act as digital dialogues for information sharing. Dates and events should be managed through one's calendar or address book, not by e-mail. Some users use e-mail messages to denote work that needs to be completed. Their inbox reflects their current tasks that have immediate deadlines. This is successful if the user is dedicated and stays the course in using an inbox as reminder for short-term deadlines. dEvELOP a sTRaTEgy TO ManagE LOng- TERM MEssagEs Relevant e-mail messages are those that are matter- affiliated or contain substantive conversations essential to business or client work. These e-mail messages also should be read and important information extracted and forwarded. Then, the e-mail should be moved to a separate folder out of your inbox. This folder can be identified by the client/matter name or the client/matter number. In so doing, you'll free up your inbox, plus you'll organize all client/matter related e-mail messages in a single location. Obviously, you'll find the information you need quickly. Another best practice for managing e-mail might involve adding an additional organizational level to managing your e-mail. Create two separate folders for your client files in your inbox. Mark one "closed" and the other "active." This extra identification layer helps you better navigate and administer your e-mail. At the end of a case, move a client folder from "active" to "closed," and add the date the matter was closed to the folder name for retention and destruction purposes. E-mail messages are records managed like paper files with applied retention schedules and subject to destruction policies. Now that you have the structure of your e-mail folders established by separating active and closed matters, and naming conventions established for each folder therein, continue your daily housekeeping with your other e-mail folders. Use your inbox to manage work, but be sure this active e-mail folder is managed properly. Official e-mail that you send out can be moved from your sent folder into to appropriate active/closed matter folders. Your trash folder for deleted e-mail can be cleared out every 30, 60 or 90 days (by a manual or automatic process). You should quickly move e-mail messages deemed an official record. Waiting until the end of the week to review e-mail messages and move them into appropriate folders is not recommended. MORE unRuLy bEhavIORs and hOW TO TaME ThEM Attachments to e-mail messages can be problematic. Prevent problems by keeping the unchanged attachments as part of your e-mail maintenance for preservation purposes. If you open an attachment and make changes, this becomes a different version of the attachment and should be saved separately. If you change and resave the attachment to the original e-mail message, you compromise the integrity of the official record. E-mail is a "difficult" medium. Misinterpretations are commonplace, so it's important to be clear, concise and professional. Far too many stories of embarrassing or unintentionally controversial malfeasance could have been avoided if the sender had followed this advice: Be mindful of what you write in e-mail that can be deemed an official record. fIndIng ThE RIghT WhIP Sophisticated software packages will incorporate all of your e-mail into your firm's records management system (RMS). The integration process identifies, via your RMS, e-mail messages that have been properly profiled under specific client/matter numbers through your e-mail system. The e-mail is profiled and made available through your RMS. Robust engines will search the entire e-mail (to, from, date, subject fields and key words) and check the body of the message, as well as the attachments.