Legal professionals live in a world dominated by electronic messages. Most of us can name at least one colleague with carpal tunnel syndrome, a side effect of banging on a keyboard all day trying to stay afloat in an ocean of emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Email, the default communication mode for professionals, brings all sorts of advantages that make it indispensable. It\u2019s so ubiquitous that we often forget about other options for exchanging information, including the phone. But A.G. Bell\u2019s invention brings advantages of its own. Legal professionals live in a world dominated by electronic messages. Most of us can name at least one colleague with carpal tunnel syndrome, a side effect of banging on a keyboard all day trying to stay afloat in an ocean of emails. Email, the default communication mode for professionals, brings all sorts of advantages that\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"publication-type":[9],"class_list":["post-33264","publications","type-publications","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","publication-type-blog-post"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Immediately exchange ideas to reach a solution<\/strong>
Solutions to complex legal issues often require two or more professionals to rapidly bounce ideas off each other. I may offer an approach to the problem that you immediately recognize as flawed. Your recognition of the flaw may trigger Jenny to come up with an alternative approach, which I may refine based on past experience. Generating ideas in this way works much better on a conference call than in an email chain, where it\u2019s easy for people to ignore and misinterpret each other\u2019s insights.
Express a sense of urgency<\/strong>
There\u2019s a tendency to respond to messages in the order in which they\u2019re received. Want to jump to the front of the queue when vying for someone\u2019s attention? Pick up the phone. Phone calls, by virtue of their scarcity in relation to emails, signify importance more effectively than an email.
Develop new business<\/strong>
Lawyers and their prospective clients don\u2019t always live in the same city. In situations where it\u2019s not practical to meet for coffee, the next best way to earn an engagement is through the phone. During a 15-minute free-flowing chat with a prospect, you may stumble upon an opportunity to collaborate that never would have come to light through email.
Break through an impasse<\/strong>
Resolving a disagreement via email can be challenging. We regularly see people\u2019s initial positions get entrenched the longer the email chain lasts. Sometimes it takes a conference call, where it\u2019s harder for people to avoid squarely addressing each other\u2019s concerns, to hammer out differences.
Take the temperature of remote staff<\/strong>
If you manage remote staff, it can be difficult to get a sense of how they\u2019re doing strictly through a dry email exchange. Picking up the phone allows you to build rapport with your team and gives you a better sense of how engaged they are.
Use the phone as a pressure-release valve<\/strong>
We\u2019ve all heard the maxim \u201cDon\u2019t write anything in an email that you wouldn\u2019t want to appear on the front page of the newspaper.\u201d When emotions run high in litigation or deal negotiation and you need to blow off steam, better to do so on the phone with a discrete colleague than to send an email that could inadvertently get forwarded or become subject to discovery.
In summary, don\u2019t let that clunky device on the corner of your desk collect too much dust. Using the phone as part of a balanced communication diet can advance your practice in meaningful ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"