Check E-Mail Hourly, Quinn Partner Says, Unless in Court, in Tunnel or Asleep
After doing a great job on a rush project, a relatively new associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges made a mistake. He didn’t check his e-mail.
As a result, he missed a senior partner’s instruction that he should send out a draft document for client review before calling it a day. Partner A. William Urquhart notes the mistake in an e-mail he sent the next morning to firm attorneys, which is reprinted in Above the Law, and exhorts the troops to pick up the pace as far as electronic message review is concerned.
Lawyers should be checking their e-mail hourly, unless they have a very good excuse for not doing so, Urquhart says, such as being in court, in a tunnel or asleep.
“One of the last things you should do before you retire for the night is to check your e-mail. That is why we give you BlackBerries,” he writes.
Urquhart declined to comment about his e-mail when contacted by the ABA Journal.
Related earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Vacation or Not, Lawyers Should Be Available via E-mail, Cleary Partner Says”
ABAJournal.com: ” ‘Reply All’ Was a Mistake, Peeved Partner Tells Quinn Emanuel Associate”
