LAW PRACTICE TIPS

Untangling the Web: Rules for Engaging in Electronic Mailing Lists
By Jim Calloway, Director OBA Management Assistance Program

Often the most effective research tool is being able to ask another lawyer a couple of questions. You can save a lot of time by getting your research started in the right direction even if you do not get the complete answer. Now imagine the power of being able to ask a question of a hundred lawyers all at once, or several hundred. Does that sound interesting?

Then you really need to know about e-mail electronic mailing lists.

Electronic mailing lists were all called listservs® in the early days of computing. But then L-Soft company started sending letters and e-mails pointing out that this was their trademarked term and only applied to their "brand" of mailing lists. For the balance of this article, we will just refer to them as lists.

The Oklahoma Bar Association now operates more than 60 lists. The lists for OBA committees and the OBA Board of Governors operated during most of 2000. The lists for OBA sections have just been completed and opened. These lists are free for section members. The Young Lawyers Division also has a list. The concept is simple. List members send e-mail to the list e-mail address. The message is then sent to every list subscriber. It appears in their e-mail inboxes just like other e-mail. They can then either reply to the entire list or privately to the original sender.

In addition to the e-mail postings about section business, reports and notices of meetings, we hope that section lists will be a conduit for practice pointers and discussions of changes in the law. You may even get a question answered before you knew you had a question.

These lists are exciting new member benefits and very powerful tools.1

However, as with physical power tools, they can be dangerous if not understood or used improperly. You can do a lot more damage with a chainsaw than with a pocketknife and more damage with an errant backhoe than a shovel. We are going to outline some of the benefits and danger areas. We want you to use the lists. So please understand the thrust of this article is to help prevent problems, not to convince you that possible problems should cause you to avoid using this powerful set of tools.

Regular one-to-one e-mail can be abused. Even non-abusive uses can be annoying. We all have noticed that we seem to get several copies of the same joke via e-mail within a few days.2 Of course, none of those people would have called us on the phone or made a personal visit to convey that joke. Virus infections can be contained in e-mail attachments. You can always tell when a novice friend starts really using e-mail as they send you bogus virus warnings, forward too-good-to-be true offers and send you old e-mail jokes you have received for the 43rd time.

There is no doubt that a lot of e-mail is a waste of time. That does not mean you should not use e-mail. E-mail provides big savings in time and money.3 Electronic mailing lists involve much greater potential for abuse. It’s one thing to waste a few minutes of a few dozen of your friend’s time. It is quite another to waste the time of hundreds of strangers.

Michael Dertouzis4 in his recent online essay "Off our Backs — Making Computers Meet Human Needs" notes that "Prolific e-mail authors should think of each message they send as an instrument that reduces the recipient’s life by two to three minutes. This may sound unreasonably harsh, especially since all human work involves invasions into other people’s time that are generally accepted. But e-mail differs from face-to-face encounters, where everyone’s time is equally taxed. If you take a mere 10 minutes to compose a message and send it to a list of 100 people, you will be consuming half a day of the recipients’ collective lives.5 "

Since lists have been around for many "Internet years,6" many rules and traditions have been established. These rules and traditions vary from list to list. They are loosely referred to as Netiquitte. Since the OBA is exposing thousands of lawyers to lists, many presumably for the first time, it seems a brief discussion of the Rules of Netiquitte, the etiquette of cyberspace, is in order.

Usenet newsgroups are another form of lists. Generally speaking the rules are the same for these although they do operate differently.

Rule Number One:

When you subscribe to a list, you will receive an automated confirmation that you have joined the list. Read it – at least once. Save it where you can find it again. You likely will have to refer to it again.

Generally speaking, you have to join a list to participate. When you subscribe, you will receive an e-mail confirming your subscription. It is sort of strange that people would join a group, receive the rules of operation for the group and never bother to read them, but it happens far too often. Violating the written rules will bring public ridicule upon you at a minimum and could get you banned from a list altogether. Lawyers in particular may put the task of reading the rules aside as it is not a priority at the moment, honestly intending to read them later. Often they never get back to them.

A typical example occurs when someone decides to unsubscribe from a list. Perhaps they are no longer interested in the subject matter of the list or perhaps they are just going on a long vacation and don’t want to return to a huge pile of e-mail. They send a message to the list saying "please unsubscribe me." This message ends up in the inboxes of everyone on the list. Since this happens almost every month (if not every week) on busy lists, the old-timers on the list will be happy to tell the would-be unsubscriber what an inconsiderate moron he or she is – quite publically. Why? Well, because changing e-mail addresses, unsubscribing and other administrative things are almost never done by the list owner. They are handled by the computer. There is a separate e-mail address to handle these commands, which of course was clearly set out in the welcome message that was obviously not read or retained for future reference.

This may seem like a minor thing to the list neophyte, but remember Michael Dertouzis’ statement we quoted. It may only take a minute to determine an e-mail is unwanted and delete it, but wasting a minute or two of a thousand people is not an inconsequential thing. If a dozen people do it, the annoyance factor can become quite high.

It is also worth noting that some list members, particularly those in other countries, may be charged by the kilobyte for e-mail that they receive. For them, inappropriate e-mails waste both time and money.

It is always good to take a low profile when first joining a list. By reading other messages you will learn more about the unwritten rules of the conduct on the list.

This one ought to be easy for lawyers. Read the Rules. Save a copy of the Rules. Follow the Rules.

Rule Number Two:

Don’t flame.

If you don’t know what flaming is by now, then you are a real Net neophyte. Flaming refers to the many intemperate and rude messages that flow across the Internet every day. As lawyers, many of us have experienced the potential of flaming long before we used the Internet. Near the end of a long hard day, a letter or fax from someone might cross our desk that seems infuriating, insulting or contains false statements. So you quickly dictate a forceful reply before going home.

The next day the dictation would be typed and given to the lawyer for proofing. With a night’s rest and a little perspective, the reply now may seem far too strident. (OK. Let’s change "appalling unethical and immoral conduct" to "conduct that concerns us" and drop the references to the other party’s mother entirely.)

Of course, with the Internet, you don’t have to wait for dictation to be transcribed. You can unload emotionally and hit enter to send it out before you go home. When you return to the office the next day, you can then read your intemperate rely in your inbox, just like all of the other subscribers to the list. You may even have some overnight responses from others waiting on you. You have now started a "Flame War."

Here’s some really valuable advice. If you are ever sending an e-mail when you are really angry, or are attacking another person, or that is aggressive, feel free to type it all out at length and really let go. Then save the draft of the message instead of sending it out. If you still feel like sending it out after you have cooled off and re-read it, go right ahead. The odds are that you will revise it if you decide to send it out at all.

Flaming will probably not be as much of a problem with the OBA lists as national lists if our experiences with the OBA-NET are any indication. Not only are you far less likely to flame a lawyer from your state who you may see at the courthouse soon, but we believe that Oklahomans are perhaps more respectful and polite than some others.

Rule Number Three:

Never post anything to a list that you would not want a certain person or group to read.

Forwarding e-mail is effortless and common. It happens more than you might think, particularly with lists. Even though you may had no idea of it, your neighbor or a lawyer down the street may be a member of the list. You may think a certain elected official of your state is a mindless and corrupt idiot. You have a constitutional right to freely state your opinion. The senior partner in your law firm will exercise the same constitutional free speech rights toward you when he receives a thrice-forwarded copy of your e-mail. You may not have known that the senior partner is currently representing the elected official’s sister or used to room with him in college.

Several months ago I sent an e-mail message to a very small list. It was slightly altered and forwarded to a few more people and then to literally thousands of people. It was not actually embarrassing, but in its altered form was not totally accurate either. For weeks, I received e-mail queries about the message from complete strangers. Since my phone number was listed in my e-mail signature block, I even received telephone calls from other states and countries. This e-mail was not about the law, however, and luckily most legal discussion e-mails are unlikely to be so forwarded. But when you send an e-mail to hundreds of people, it is fairly obvious that you have lost control of it.

Rule Number Four:

Use clear and descriptive subject headings.
This is true for regular e-mail as well as lists.

If you are having an e-mail discussion with a colleague about a case, every e-mail referring to the case should have a subject line beginning with Smith v. Jones. It is tempting to liven up things with more interesting headers like "Today’s Developments" or "Guess what happened now?" Avoid the temptation to be overly creative. If you must be creative then use a subject line like "Smith v. Jones — Guess what happened now?" If the recipient receives a lot of e-mail, then a message titled "Guess What?" may not be read as a priority, and in fact may be deleted without ever being read. Involved clients or opposing counsel will always read messages titled Smith v. Jones if that is their case.

This rule is many times more important when sending mail to a list. If the list is an active one, most readers will scan the message subject headers and only read the ones that interest them. They may delete many messages unread. On a list with discussion of many general legal topics, those who do not practice bankruptcy, for example, may delete every message unread that has bankruptcy in the subject line. This practice is very common and efficient. If you are posting a query about bankruptcy to a list, why do you care if it is read by those who know nothing about the topic? They are going to be of no assistance to you.

The converse is true as well. Clearly labeling a message as "Bankruptcy — Automatic Stay Question" may mean that many will delete it unread. But it also increases the likelihood that a bankruptcy expert may be drawn to the question, read it and respond with some valuable insight or advice. There is a win-win situation when you do not waste the time of those who cannot help and increase the chances that some potentially helpful person will read it.

Rule Number Five:

Do not go "off topic."

This is another variation of the above themes. Sending an intellectual property lawyer’s list e-mail about your pet or the cute things that your child has done is inappropriate.

A famous American Bar Association list for solo and small firm lawyers is called Solosez. All sorts of topics are covered there. In sort of a parody of the issue of off-topic postings, new subscribers to Solosez are required to introduce themselves by posting, among other things, their favorite beverage and all of their pets by name. On Solosez, postings that are totally unrelated to the practice of law are supposed to be preceded by the designation (WC) for Water Cooler. The point is that this is the type of thing that might be discussed around the water cooler in a larger firm and Solosez can serve as the office water cooler for solos. The WC label allows those who do not want to read those type of messages to delete them unread.

It is easy to subscribe to Solosez.7 It is free and ABA membership is not required. However it is a high volume list, often with over 100 e-mail messages per day sent and received. There are also a few people who tend to pepper Solosez with their political diatribes far too frequently. You need to understand filtering, alternative e-mail addresses and other management techniques before you join such a high volume list. Having said that, several OBA members are members of Solosez and say they greatly benefit from it.

Rule Number Six:

Know when to go off list.

This one is my pet peeve. Someone posts a question and another person answers it. Then the first person replies "Thank You." This would be normally considered good manners. But good manners are different in cyberspace. The reader has probably figured out the problem here. The list members will receive a message where the subject header promises a discussion of some legal topic, but when they open it, they see only the "thank you." This is no big deal if it happens once or twice a year, but a very big deal if it happens every week. It is more of a problem with high volume lists obviously.

If your e-mail only says "Thank you," it should be sent directly to the person you are thanking and not the entire list.8 With the OBA section lists, that is fairly easy. You click on Reply to send just to the original sender and Reply All to include the entire list in the response. (OBA committee lists were configured a bit differently and will be changed soon to operate this way.)

Off list just means e-mailing a person on the list directly to their e-mail address instead of sending it to the entire list. Going off list means that you can avoid the flames in response to posting an off topic message on the list. You are only sending a message to one person. It may be that they posted something personal that touched you and you want to share something personal in your life with them, but not with 100 people. It may be that you are traveling to their part of the country and want advice on good restaurants and sight seeing. It may be that you want to take issue with something they have posted, but don’t want to do that in front of hundreds of other people.

There are other aspects of Netiquitte, but these rules will be a good start for the beginner. If you want to read more on the topic, just type Netiquitte into any Internet search engine.

Tips for Using Lists

1) Managing list traffic - If you use your e-mail very much, you will probably not want all of the list e-mail mixed in with your regular email. Almost every list subscriber uses e-mail management tools called Filters or Rules. In fact, if you are using an older e-mail reader without these powerful options, it may be time to upgrade. It may take a few minutes to set up this, but it will pay off in great benefits.

Microsoft Outlook is the most-used e-mail program. It is fairly easy to set up different folders for the OBA lists. If you are a member of three OBA sections and want to subscribe to all of the lists, you might set up three folders titled: Litigation List, Family Law List and General Practice List for your section e-mail. Then you set up rules that filter all of the list traffic to the proper folders. You can then read them at your leisure.

Others set up separate e-mail accounts and addresses for their list traffic. This is particularly useful if your Internet Service Provider provides you with more than one e-mail account and address. Web-based e-mail services like Justicemail and Hotmail may also be used for your lists.

2) Avoid subscribing to several new lists at once - On the OBA section lists, this is not a problem because they are all just getting started. But it is better not to join three or four new lists all at once if they are established and active. Focusing on one list and learning its culture, unwritten rules and the active posters is a better approach. We have all heard the stories of lawyers who discover the magical world of mailing lists and join several without worrying about filters or rules. They may open up their inbox the next day to hundreds of e-mails. Join one list at a time and evaluate its usefulness to you.

3) Finding out about lists - There are literally tens of thousands of lists. List subject matters include just about every possible interest, ranging from pets to politics to impressionist art. Many archives of lists are available on the web. Some lists are obscure and hard to locate. But lawyer and law lists are fairly easy to locate.

OBA Lists- Go to www.okbar.org and log into my okbar as we have already explained.

ABA lists - It is not a surprise that the ABA sponsors more law-related lists than any other entity. You may review the numerous lists alphabetically at http://www.abanet.org/discussions/home.html. A surprising number of these lists are "open" which means that anyone can subscribe. Some more lists are "closed." The ABA may require ABA membership to be a part of some lists. Others may be limited to those who can verify that they are lawyers. Obviously many lists for ABA committees and ABA entities will be limited to those who are members of those groups.

Other law lists - From the early days of the Internet, Lyonette Louis-Jacques of the University of Chicago Law School has maintained the authoritative resource on law lists. It is online at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/lawlists/info.html. Her article on the history of law-related lists was published in May 1994 and can be accessed from that site as well.

Conclusion

Electronic mailing lists are a very useful tool if you learn how to properly use them. The OBA has invested significant resources in developing lists for our members. What happens with these lists in the future is now in the hands of the OBA members. Some will probably flourish more than others. But hopefully all of the sections’ members will enjoy the time and expense savings that result from these lists. Our OBA lists will likely avoid many of the problems we have outlined.

On a broader scale, other lists provide the potential for nationwide and worldwide networking and information sharing. Some lawyers have received case referrals from lawyers in other states they know through a list. Others learn of specialized issues or the unwritten rules of a foreign court. An Oklahoma City attorney told me he receives invaluable information from national elder law and estate planning lists. Imagine communicating directly with a leading national authority in a unique area of the law. Those suffering from e-mail overload may be hesitant to sign up, but there’s really no doubt that lists will be another technological tool that most of us will add to the many new tools at our disposal.

1. We do have to note that the OBA-NET provides many of the same benefits as lists without some of the problems. It is not free, however, costing $100 a year for unlimited access. But it covers a much wider range of information and has forms available for downloading.
2. I think I’ve got as good a sense of humor as the next person, but considering the volume of e-mail that I process, I’ve told several friends not to e-mail me any humor and on busy days I often delete e-mail jokes after reading the first few words without ever getting to the punch line.
3. See "Saving Time and Money the E-way".
4. Michael Dertouzis is head of the MIT Media Lab. He is the author of several books, including the forthcoming "The Unfinished Revolution" that explores his thoughts in an essay in greater depth.
5. http://www.msnbc.com/news/506055.asp
6. The term Internet years defies easy definition. They are sort of like dog years, occurring about seven times faster than we normally define years. Some calendar years encompass more than seven ‘Net years, however.
7. The direct Internet link for subscribing to Solsosez is http://www.abanet.org/scripts/listcommands.asp?parm=subscribe/solosez
You can also get there by going to www.abanet.org and looking under discussion groups.
8. There are exceptions to this rule. If someone has gone above and beyond the call of duty in assisting you or you have received some great benefit from the list, it is totally appropriate to post a "testimonial," publically praising and thanking the person. But this post will contain some explanation and not just the words "Thank you."

How To Sign Up

The section mailing list sign up procedure is also fairly simple. Subscribing to OBA section lists takes place through my okbar on the Oklahoma Bar Association webpage using your bar number as your user name and the online access PIN number printed on your dues statement as your password.

Go to the OBA webpage at www.okbar.org.

Click on the my okbar tab at the top of the page and log in using the information above.

Before subscribing to a section list, you must review your "Roster Info" and insure that the bar database reflects your current, correct e-mail address. Update the roster if your e-mail address is not correct or does not appear. You cannot be on an e-mail list without having e-mail and having the address in our database.

Next you click on the Lists section. You should be presented with a list of every section of which you are a paid member.

Use the subscribe/unsubscribe feature to check the boxes and subscribe to the lists. The Young Lawyers Division will appear as well. If you have been admitted to practice within the last 10 years, you are encouraged to subscribe to the YLD list as well — it’s free with no annual fees.

 How Many Mail List Subscribers Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

This humorous piece has been floating around the Internet for some time. It pokes fun at many of the interpersonal and group dynamics typical of a mailing list. The author of this piece is unknown. URL refers to a web page address.

How many mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: 1,331

1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed

14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently

7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs

27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs

53 to flame the spell checkers

41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames

156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list

109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to another list

203 to demand that cross posting to other lists about changing light bulbs be stopped

111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts *are* relevant to this mail list

3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list

306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty

27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs

14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs

33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add "Me Too."

12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy

19 to quote the "Me Too’s" to say, "Me Three."

4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ

48 to propose new change.lite.bulb newsgroup

47 to say there is already an alt.light.bulb newsgroup

143 to ask if anyone ever did change the lightbulb

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal January 13, 2001 - Vol. 72; No.2