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Email Management Tips for Lawyers: How to Waste Less Time in 2022
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by
Skyler Reeves
July 30, 2022
· Updated on
Ask any lawyer, and they're likely to have a similar stress point: their email inbox.
Email is a convenient and quick way to communicate, but without a system in place, law firm staff can struggle to keep up with all the incoming requests, questions, and comments.
Email management software, or the system used to receive, send, and organize email messages, is a must for a law firm of any size. But all approaches to email management are not created equal.
Email management is not as simple as hitting inbox zero or clearing your inbox of the most urgent messages. It’s about developing systems and tools to handle incoming and outgoing emails.
While Gmail or Outlook might be the tool you use to receive and send messages, email management is about all the ways you and your entire firm manage email.
For law firms, following email management best practices should be a collective approach using the right strategies for your whole team to easily receive, prioritize, delegate, communicate about, and respond to email messages efficiently.
Lawyers who don't have a great system in place for managing their inboxes face several challenges. Here are some of the most common complaints from attorneys:
"There was a major time tax in our firm spent on forwarding emails" says Steve Rice, founder and lead attorney of Steve Rice Law, when asked about how his firm handled email before using a dedicated email management tool.
"We worked mostly in Google Calendar, Clio, and Gmail, but it was really difficult to have access to each other's lives. If people haven't been copied on things or someone's out of office, that's a problem" says Ryan Hamilton of Sherwood Family Law.
Law firms that put a robust email management system in place have a way to control inbox chaos, avoid email overload make sure that important emails are addressed promptly, and keep all staff members on the same page.
When your email system works well, it's a beautiful thing. With the right tool and training in place, some possible benefits include:
CORPLaw founder Kristen Corpion says, "Before, we were not able to cross-collaborate as a remote team on emails without having to forward them back and forth."
Lawyer Derek Martin of Driver Defense Team echoes that need for collaboration. "Prior to using Missive, everyone just used their individual email addresses. That just doesn't work if someone goes on vacation or takes a day off, especially for our inbound sales team or core client relations. Even a day can make a big difference."
With other essential elements of your law firm, you use tools like case management or practice management software, client intake workflows, or document management systems to keep things streamlined. Email management adds to that tech stack and allows you to sort and handle all the communications and documents coming in and out of your law firm.
Getting started with proper email management may seem like an uphill battle. The good news is that there are proven ways for attorneys to stay on top of their inboxes. These 10 tips will help your law firm waste less time.
It all starts with the right tool. The wrong tool only frustrates legal professionals and their teams, meaning it won't be adopted.
Attorneys work in a collaborative setting. Even small firm owners and solo lawyers communicate daily with an assistant or paralegal. All lawyers deal with a high volume of emails each day from prospects, clients, other attorneys, and other sources that can quickly become a confusing mess.
Start with what you're using now: does your current tool have the collaboration and organization features you need?
Pro tip Outlook and Gmail don't cut it for modern law firms. Too many law firms have developed bulky "systems" while trying to make Outlook or Gmail work, but they don't perform consistently well for the complex needs of attorneys.
"I was using Outlook before, and although I don't have a huge team, I have a lot of email addresses. It was really cumbersome to track replies" says lawyer Shawn Stone of Stone Law Group.
"I was concerned about some of the limitations with Gmail. Forwarding emails was a tax on our firm, and it was hard not to be able to discuss things before sending emails" adds attorney Steve Rice.
That's where Missive comes in. Missive is a tool that allows your team to receive and manage email consistently. If better collaboration and organization are your top priorities for email, Missive is the perfect tool for making your inbox easier to manage.
In my view, I think we are a better firm because of what we have available to us with Missive.Steve Rice, Steve Rice Law
When your whole team works from the same place, it's easy for anyone to jump in on a pending matter.
Knowing when other people are working on emails is helpful, too. Managing email with Missive has saved lawyer Kristen Corpion a lot of time while also building a better workplace for her staff.
It's much easier to cross-collaborate as a remote team. We can have multiple team members weighing in and editing emails together, which is great. Being able to see when other team members are online or are looking at the same time you are, you feel more connected.Kristen Corpion, CORPLaw
For attorney Shawn Stone, the cumbersome shared inboxes on Outlook weren't cutting it. He says, "The beauty I found in Missive is I can have shared mailboxes. I can see if someone's already responded, I can assign someone else to the email, and I can make comments."
Leaving comments was a quick way for Shawn to say, "Hey team, here's how we'll handle this" a lesson that gets taught once. From there, team members know how to manage repeat situations consistently.
Adding Missive to his firm’s tech stack gave Shawn great confidence that every client was getting the best experience no matter whom they interacted with on his team.
Missive is a great tool to ensure that the team is on the same page concerning communication with our clients and to help ensure that we don't have communication slipping through the cracks. It's been an invaluable tool for my office.Shawn Stone, Stone Law Group
Rules, filters, and labels all create powerful email shortcuts.
Many lawyers using Microsoft's Outlook or Gmail will recognize rules, filters, and labels. These are ways of sorting your inbox by characteristics like client name, subject line, and body text. At a basic level, these work fine in Outlook and Gmail.
But inside a supercharged email client like Missive, you'll find these popular options while simultaneously taking advantage of many other powerful features.
Email rules automate actions when certain things are triggered by a message received or sent. Use a range of conditions to determine if/then scenarios. Filters and labels help you choose the best way to sort data in your inbox. In Missive, you can even use shared labels for the whole organization.
Email rules are easily changed as needed. If a priority email on an upcoming case should be pushed to the top of your inbox only for a short period, you can adjust your rules for client emails.
The average person checks their email about 15 times daily. That's counterproductive. Most lawyers barely get through all their unread messages only to discover that the messages they sent are already generating new responses in the inbox.
Instead of keeping your email open constantly and letting the anxiety build up as your number of unread messages grows, set aside specific times to read and reply to emails. Start three times per day and close your inbox in between.
When you add advanced tools like rules, filters, and labels, you'll discover this is more focused and less stressful overall.
Here's a simple but winning approach to prioritizing your emails: sort them as "Do Now," "Do Later," and "Delegate." Then, teach your team how to triage their inboxes so you don't get buried in unread emails.
With Missive, you can delegate and assign messages to someone on the team. Likewise, emails coming to your main firm account can be directed by other staff to you, at which point they'll show up at the top of your inbox.
Following this process helps team members get feedback before a message is sent and gives the owner manageable oversight of the email process.
Being able to get insight into the messaging is helpful. With Missive, I can see the quality and timeliness of replies.Derek Martin, Driver Defense Team
Attorneys often receive emails that require consensus-building or input from other lawyers at the firm. Getting these insights forces most lawyers to forward these messages to their coworkers and hope everyone remembers to hit reply all so that the conversation stays on track.
Emailing your team is time-consuming. It's easy for vital context to get lost in a sea of out-of-sync cc'd and forwarded messages.
Keep email for external communication and look for a tool that allows you and your team to reference email in internal conversations.
One option is to use Slack, but jumping between apps to talk about work email can cause as much friction and context switching as forwarding emails.
A better option is to use Missive for internal conversations about email by using built-in chat features.
Within Missive, you can comment on individual emails and tag team members. If you need input from colleagues, just leave a comment tagging them. The email chain is then shared with them, automatically landing in their inbox so they can reply in the comments.
You can also open a chat room within Missive to discuss things in real-time. Missive's room feature is perfect for one-on-one or team communication.
The Inbox Zero method is a productivity practice aimed at keeping your email inbox empty or nearly empty at all times.
This approach keeps your inbox from getting out of control. When your inbox reaches high numbers of unread messages, it's much easier for something to slip through the cracks.
Here are a few pro tips to get started with inbox zero right away:
No matter how long you've been in practice, one thing is for sure: too many people have access to you through your inbox. Over time, as you get on newsletter lists, you're giving your time and attention away.
As your interests change or you want to remain more focused at work, an easy way to do this is to ruthlessly evaluate all the newsletter lists you're on and hit that unsubscribe button.
Nobody needs every notification from social media. The goal of these notifications is to get you to stop what you're doing and open up the social media app or website instead. Don't give them that power.
Unless you get leads via social media messages, shut the notifications down.
If you are getting law firm leads through social media like Facebook Messenger, route them through Missive instead. Missive offers social media and SMS connections so you'll get the most important data you need without being on social media or your phone all the time.
Many of the emails that lawyers and their staff send throughout the work day provide the same information to different clients. Repeatedly writing out these boilerplate messages is a waste of time.
If you’re using Gmail or Outlook, you may already be using templates to save some time on email follow-ups. But with Missive, you can take canned responses to the next level with searchable shared templates and variables.
Once you’ve created a response in Missive, you can choose to keep it private or share it across the team. All team members instantly get the latest version if you have to update one of the shared templates.
All canned responses are searchable within the app so anyone on your team can find the right response with just a few keystrokes. Here's an example of how different queries all pull up the same email template in Missive:
You can even speed up the time it takes to send a canned response by using response variables to insert information like the recipient's name automatically.
You can't practice law without communicating clearly and promptly with your clients. That calls for an email management tool with features designed to help you keep organized and save time.
No matter the size of your firm or your practice area, here are some key features to look for in your email management software.
Sending out an email might require some behind-the-scenes conversations. Missive makes it all possible with first-class collaboration features, including live collaboration on drafts.
The beauty I found in Missive is that I have the shared mailboxes, and I can see if someone has responded easily. I can also make comments to my team to give them direction on how to respond, meaning they can handle similar issues like that in the future. I describe Missive as collaborative email.Shawn Stone, Stone Law Group
We use Missive like our central communication platform. We do check-ins and social threads to stay connected as a team. There was not another platform that allowed us to have that social dynamic. This is our team collaboration tool that also allows us to email.Kristen Corpion, CORPLaw
As a lawyer, you'll always end up with more email messages that you can or want to reply to. Seek out a tool where you can assign a message to someone else with just a few clicks.
As Ryan Hamilton points out, attorneys have too many emails. "We need to build out a foundation now so that it's streamlined from the beginning. The size of our law firm now won't be the size in two or three years. Our staff utilizing the team folders and the legal assistants filter out everything from thousands of emails to the ten the lawyer needs to see that day make our attorney's lives a lot easier."
What's the point of getting new software that comes with all the bells and whistles if every person on your team can't get behind using it? User experience is vital.
The right solution for email management should make it simple for everyone to learn the tool quickly.
The best news about Missive is that it's loved by law firm staff across the board. Just ask lawyer Derek Martin.
Everybody in our firm picked up Missive quickly. I onboarded four new hires to the platform in a month with nearly no training because of the intuitive UI/UX.Derek Martin, Driver Defense Team
The tool is simple and easy to get used to, and your team will love the improved communication and time savings they'll experience.
Features like rules and email templates save time by helping keep your inbox organized, ensure that important emails get a fast response, and create consistent messaging from all staff members.
As a lawyer, look for a tool to easily automate your team's workflow as much as possible. That way, you can focus on what’s important—like getting new cases—instead of worrying about emails falling through the cracks.
Let email work in your favor with the right system. Empower your team to take the lead on a message or assign things back to you when necessary. Happily reach inbox zero. It's all possible with the right system.
If you're going to invest the time and money into a permanent email app for your law firm, stick with the one that provides the best overall value and experience.
We use so many cloud-based services I've lost track. It adds up at the end of each month. Missive is never on the list of what to cut. It's really changed the way we're able to help our clients by being synchronized across the boardRyan Hamilton, Sherwood Family Law
Ready to take Missive for a spin in your law firm? Sign up today and give it a try for yourself.
November 29, 2024
Google Collaborative Inbox: Why Your Teams Won't Like It
Google's Collaborative Inbox offers a way to manage shared email addresses, but it has some flaws.
At its core, email was designed to be addressed to a single individual, just like regular mail.
But with more and more businesses starting to increase their online presence, catch-all email addresses (info@, sales@, support@) began to increase. And with no way to efficiently distribute the workload of these catch-all addresses, email quickly became a burden. To resolve the problem, it wasn't uncommon to see people use the oldest hack in the book:
Sharing individual account passwords.
It might have worked very early on when online security was not a big thing for most organizations. But email providers, like Gmail, quickly started dissuading this practice by temporarily locking people's accounts when detecting multiple sign-ins to the same account. As an alternative, Google offers Google Groups and its Collaborative Inbox.
But what is it exactly? And is it the solution you’re looking for? Let's find out!
Google Collaborative Inbox is a free feature of Google Groups available to businesses using Google Workspace (also known as G Suite). It can be used by teams to manage shared email accounts that are meant to be shared mailboxes, such as support@ or info@.
While not a complete shared inbox software solution, it offers more robust features than Gmail when it comes to email collaboration.
To simplify things, Google Collaborative Inbox is a shared email folder that members of a group can access through their own accounts.
The idea is that group members can access a shared email address securely. All members can email everyone in the group and can also allow external emails. They can assign conversations to different group members, mark the progress, create labels, and filter them.
It’s the simple evolution of a distribution list, allowing teams to somewhat collaborate around a shared mailbox.
Google Collaborative Inbox allows teams using Google Workspace to access a basic shared mailbox without the need of other software.
It can be used to manage email addresses that need to be accessed by a group of people. The benefits of using Collaborative Inbox come mostly from the collaborative nature of the feature and not the tool itself.
Here are the benefits of a having a shared mailbox with collaboration functionalities:
Google Collaborative Inbox sounds great, but according to its users, the solution is complex to use yet limited in its features.
Your customer support and sales teams will certainly be the most impacted. Here are the most important ones:
The UI is unfamiliar and doesn’t integrate into the Gmail inbox. So your team will have to shuffle between the two apps. It also means that you can't manage all your email from one place.
You cannot easily discuss an issue with a coworker in the context of an email. Nor can emails truly be delegated. You need to either forward emails, which will generate more emails, or use the built-in chat, but you will need to describe the problem since your message won't be in context.
Replies to customers are sent from the individual's account, not the group email address, so you always need to remember also to send them to the group address. Otherwise, teammates will no longer see that email. And if the customer forgets to "reply-all", the email will never show up in the group's inbox. Emails can easily fall through the cracks.
If an email has been assigned to someone, other people won't see if others are already working on it, not until the reply is sent. This may lead to double responses, wasted time for your team, slower response time, and customers getting a negative impression of your organization.
There's no simple way for a manager to monitor emails from their team. Filtering is also a bit rudimentary, so important things might get easily overlooked.
You also need to switch between Gmail and the Google Groups UI to be on top of things. This also means that emails sent to the group address can't be read on mobile devices, because they cannot be accessed through a Gmail account or any other app.
Creating automation rules that help your team triage emails faster is impossible. Everything needs to be done manually, which can lead to mistakes.
You can't centralize your team's communications. As we all know, customers nowadays contact organizations through various channels, like, Messenger, Instagram, SMS, etc.
To wrap things up, we could say that using Google's Collaborative Inbox is far from the right tool for the job. Lost emails, unclear ownership, unintuitive UI... Here's where Missive might prove to be an excellent weapon to keep in your arsenal.
You want to give Google Group Collaborative Inbox a shot?
Here’s how to (relatively) easily turn on the collaborative inbox features in Google Groups:
Managing the workflow of a Collaborative Inbox inside Google Groups can be done in a few different ways. Depending on the permissions you gave to each team member they can use Google Groups features to manage the shared folder of email.
You can assign a conversation to any group member including yourself to manage messages and responsibilities. Conversations can be sorted based on their assignment status.
You can mark a conversation as complete, no action required, or as a duplicate. Right next to the subject will be the status of the conversation.
You can organize your Collaborative Inbox by using labels on related conversations. Labels can be used in conversations no matter their assignment and resolution status.
Your best option when looking for an alternative to Google Groups’ Collaborative Inbox is dedicated email collaboration software for business.
While you have multiple options (refer to our top shared inbox software), we believe that this short list of alternatives are the ones that will check all the boxes to make your team love shared email.
Missive is a real collaborative inbox. It features team inboxes and chats that empower teams to collaborate not only around email but other channels of communication like SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and live chat.
Missive was built with collaboration in mind.
The Team Inbox lets you collaborate with team members and assign them to conversation. It is useful for teams who want a "triage" step that will clean up messages for all coworkers at once.
It lets you communicate with coworkers right inside an email thread. You can also @mention a colleague and start a conversation, all without leaving the email in question.
With Missive, you can create sets of rules that automate actions; these can save time and spare support employees from doing repetitive tasks. For example, all refund-related emails can be automatically assigned to the Finance team or a specific employee.
Price: Price: Free for up to 2 shared accounts. Starting at $15/month for more.
Gmelius is a good alternative for users that want to keep on using Gmail. Gmelius is a Gmail add-on that brings shared inboxes directly to the web app. It comes with features like chats with your coworkers in an email thread, adding labels, and assigning team members to an email.
Gmelius also offer Kanban-style board for project management directly in Gmail.
Price: Start at $15/month
Hiver is another solutions that is used on top of Gmail. This Chrome extension enables you to collaborate and manage your shared inbox in your existing Gmail account. It offers the standard shared mailbox functionalities such as assigning people to a conversation and tagging emails and comments privately in a discussion.
Hiver also comes with features like task automation and analytics.
Price: Starting at $19/month.
Helpwise is a good alternative to Google Group Collaborative Inbox. It offers a shared inbox similar to Missive, with a way collaborate on a shared alias with a focus on shared accounts like SMS, social media, and live chat.
It also lets you add an assignee to a conversation, tag emails, and chat with your coworkers.
Price: Free for 1 shared account. Starting at $15/month for more.
Help Scout is primarily a helpdesk software, but it can double a good shared inbox solution with features like live chat, and a knowledge base.
With it, you can manage shared emails, group emails together using labels, assign people to a conversation, chat with teammates, and tag conversations.
Price: Starting at $25/month.
Don't get me wrong. Gmail is a great email client for individuals. But when it comes to shared inboxes and team collaboration, Missive helps your team keep their eyes on the ball and move toward inbox zero.
Google Collaborative Inbox is a free feature of Google Groups that lets businesses using Google Workspace manage shared email addresses like support@ or info@ as a team.
A Collaborative Inbox is a feature of Google Groups that enables teams to collaborate on shared emails like info@. It acts as a shared folder where all emails from a shared alias go. It offers bare bones and basic shared inbox features.
Shared inboxes allow multiple coworkers to access email simultaneously. While each user maintains a personal account, their shared mailboxes can be accessed and managed by all.
December 22, 2022
Gmail Delegation: Why It Might Not Be for You
Thinking about Gmail delegation? Check the possible cons and risks first. This article looks at Gmail...
Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails you receive each day? Are you struggling to keep up with the demands of your inbox?
You are not alone!
It can be easy to fall behind on your emails.
Some of you might be looking for a way to have their assistant manage their emails and calendar for them to finally achieve inbox zero.
Fortunately for you, there is a way to make it easier using email delegation. Google introduced Gmail delegation a little over a decade ago to help its users manage multiple email accounts and stay on top of their inboxes.
In this blog post, we will explore how to use Gmail delegation and why it might not be the best solution for you.
Email delegation is the process of delegating access to your email account to another person. This allows the delegate to access your inbox, reply to emails, and manage your emails on your behalf. It is a great way to save time and resources, as it allows someone else to handle your emails while you focus on other tasks.
This can be useful in a number of different situations. For example, if you are going on vacation and want someone else to be able to handle your email while you are away, you can delegate access to your account to that person.
To delegate access to your email account, you will need to set up a delegate relationship in your email client. This typically involves providing the email address of the person you want to delegate access to and granting them specific permissions.
Once the delegate relationship is set up, the delegate will be able to access your email account and perform certain actions. This may include reading and responding to emails, managing your calendar and schedule, and sending emails on your behalf.
Email delegation can be a useful tool for managing your email and ensuring that important tasks are taken care of even when you are unable to do so yourself.
It is important to remember, however, that delegation should be used with caution and only granted to people you trust.
Gmail Delegation is a feature offered in both the public and the Google Workspace version that allows you to give someone else (a Gmail delegate) access to your Gmail account.
This person can:
However, they can’t:
A delegated Gmail account allows you to give another person access to your Gmail account, while a Collaborative Inbox is a shared email account that multiple people can access and use to manage email communications.
A delegated account can be useful if you need someone else to manage your email while you are unavailable or if you want to share your Gmail account with someone else like an assistant.
Google Groups’ Collaborative Inbox, on the other hand, is a shared email account that is set up specifically to allow multiple people to access and manage email communications. A collaborative inbox is often used by teams or organizations to manage customer service inquiries or other shared communications. Multiple people can access a shared mailbox to see and respond to emails sent to the alias.
Email delegation has several benefits. These advantages include:
To summarize delegating emails can save you time, as you no longer have to manage your emails on your own. Additionally, email delegation can help to ensure that important emails are not missed or forgotten.
However, email delegation should be handled carefully and that access is only given to people you can trust. Make sure that expectations and rules for delegates are clear.
It is important to remember that email delegation is not the best solution for shared inboxes. A shared inbox tool is more suitable for your team to collaborate on shared aliases.
Setting up Gmail delegates can be done in only a few simple steps.
If your account is part of an organization, you'll first need to make sure that the Google Workspace admin has turned on email delegation for users.
Here’s how to set up Gmail delegation:
Gmail users with organizational emails can delegate access to a group with the same domain. Members outside of the group are not allowed to the delegated Gmail.
To access a Gmail delegated account, you need to be given delegated access by the owner of the account. Here's how to do it:
Once the delegated account is loaded, you’ll be able to manage the Gmail account exactly like you would with your account.
To remove delegate access in Gmail, follow these steps:
The removed delegate will no longer have access to your account and won’t be able to view or send emails from it.
There are several reasons why Gmail delegation may not be the best tool for delegating emails. A tool like Missive might be the best solution for your needs.
Here are the main limitations when using Gmail delegates.
When a delegate sends an email from the owner's account, the recipient will see that it was sent by the delegate and not the owner. This can be confusing and may not be suitable in all cases.
In Missive, emails sent by delegates aren’t different from an email sent by yourself. The recipient won’t be able to know if the email was sent by you or someone else on your behalf.
To delegate access to your Google calendar and Google contacts in addition to your emails, you need to grant delegate access to each of these separately. This can be inconvenient and time-consuming.
With Missive, you can share your calendar automatically so the person assisting you can create, respond and manage your events. Contacts contained in a contact book can also be shared with others. You can have multiple contact books if you want to keep some contacts private.
With Gmail delegation, you can only grant delegates the same level of access to all people. You cannot have multiple levels of delegates to manage their permissions like sending and deleting emails on your behalf.
When you grant the delegate access to your Gmail account, you are giving the delegate access to all of your emails. It is not possible to share only specific emails or folders with a delegate.
Missive makes it easy to manage the permissions you give to a delegate. You can give delegate access to certain emails or folders while keeping other emails and folders private. Additionally, you can easily revoke access to emails and folders whenever you need to. This makes it easy to manage and control your emails and folders, even when delegating access to others.
Gmail delegation is only available to users of Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite) or Gmail. If you are not using Google Workspace, you will not be able to use this feature. Additionally, you can also only add a delegate within your organization or with a Gmail address if you're not part of one. If you need to delegate tasks to someone outside of your organization or to someone who is not using Gmail, Gmail delegation is not an option.
With Missive you can share your inbox with anyone, there are no restrictions on the email provider you’re using or if the delegates have the same email domain as you.
Gmail delegation does not offer any built-in collaboration features. You and your delegate will not be able to work on emails together in real time. If you need to collaborate with your delegate on emails or other tasks, you will need to use another tool.
With Missive, you can chat with your delegates directly in an email conversation and even collaborate on drafts.
Overall, while Gmail delegation can be a useful feature in certain cases, it may not be the best tool for delegating emails depending on your needs and requirements.
Missive makes it easy and safe to delegate emails. You can decide who to delegate to, what access to give, and what actions are allowed - without having to share passwords.
Explore our ultimate guide to email delegation with Missive to learn how to get started.
Email delegation is a great way to manage multiple email accounts and stay on top of your inbox. You can save time and resources by delegating access to another person while ensuring that important emails are not missed or forgotten. So, if you are looking for a way to manage your emails more efficiently, email delegation may be just what you need.
