Legal technology: Coping with e-mail

It is not that long ago that e-mail was still being talked about as the “killer app” that would really change the way lawyers work. And it certainly has – although perhaps not in the way originally envisaged if reports that in some City firms fee earners are spending as much of 40 per cent of their time dealing with e-mail are anything to go by.

The fundamental difficulty with e-mail is there are just so many different problems to tackle and, as yet, no one-size-fits-all solutions available to fix them with. But, are these problems really serious or is this just the software industry trying to spread a little FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) to generate sales?

Well, there were no smiling faces in evidence at either Norton Rose or Clifford Chance when, respectively, the Claire Swire and “Paddinggate” e-mails escaped into the open. And, after a long hot summer of growing volumes of spam and viruses, there are very few major firms where e-mail management is not the number-one item on the IT agenda. Or, as one partner I was speaking to recently put it: “E-mail now represents our firm’s biggest exposure to risk and expense.”

So just what are the problems to consider with e-mail? The first issue is security – how can you be certain that an urgent e-mail message reaches the other side and does not get lost, along with its valuable contents, somewhere in cyberspace. And, when it does arrive, how can you tell if the recipients have actually opened and read it?

There are no shortage of solutions, all based around the concepts of encryption and time stamping, but ironically this only makes the problem worse because there are also no agreed industry-wide standards, leading to a situation where some firms are having to install multiple systems to deal with messages coming in from different encryption platforms. Add to this the fact that most firms – and their clients – are reluctant to install any system that puts extra features on end-user desktops and/or requires further training, and it is hardly surprising many organisations prefer to go bare, sending unencrypted messages because it is less hassle than the alternatives.

And, talking of hassle, while PKI (public key infrastructure) is widely rated as the most secure approach, it is also the most onerous in management terms, with one 100-user Scottish firm recently discovering that it would cost them an extra £60,000 a year just to manage a PKI-based secure e-mail system.

Still on the subject of security, there is also the problem of content management and e-mail abuse to deal with. How do you stop your firm’s system being put out of action by a virus attack? It is also sad the number of firms that install anti-virus software but neglect to keep it up to-date. How do you prevent your users from being swamped by spam and other forms of e-mail junk mail without barring messages that are of genuine relevance? The short answer, in the case of most firms, is currently very badly. And, with the digital boot on the other foot, how do you prevent you own staff from exposing your firm to claims through the inappropriate use of e-mail? We are now starting to see more firms implementing policy-compliance systems to help reduce this risk by ensuring guidelines are followed. But, the fact remains that the whole sense of urgency and immediacy surrounding e-mail will always expose you to the peril of reply in haste, regret at leisure – so just think before you click that send button.

Finally, how are you going to cope with all these e-mails and what are you going to do once you receive them? Issues here include the physical aspects of handling high volumes of e-mail traffic, in terms of network capacity (or bandwidth) and server reliability. The need for back-up systems is essential here as one of the few aspects of IT that really stirs lawyers is the failure of their e-mail system. There is also the issue of longer-term storage, for example, will you just archive all you old messages or try to make them an integral part of your overall document and matter-management systems. Again, this is an issue that is now at the top of the agenda thanks to various high-profile cases where some of the most crucial evidence has been found lurking in e-mail files.

If you are still thinking e-mail is something you can ignore for another few months, just remember that we are heading into the festive season when lawyers start clogging up the firm’s network bandwidth and storage space by forwarding “hilarious” online multimedia greetings cards to each other.

Charles Christian is the editor of the Legal Technology Insider newsletter.