Vacation or Not, Lawyers Should Be Available via E-mail, Cleary Partner Says

Even when a lawyer is on vacation, he or she should still routinely be available by e-mail, a London partner of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton tells his partners in a recent e-mail.

An "out of office" auto-reply saying that an attorney is unavailable is acceptable only in rare circumstances, such as when a lawyer is on an international flight in a different time zone and a colleague, for some reason, is unable to cover, writes Raj Panasar.

In that case, he says, the e-mail should specify the exact time period—in hours, not days—that the attorney will be unavailable, and provide alternative phone numbers, reports in an e-mail obtained by the New Lawyer, an Australian publication.

Panasar recommends that a revised e-mail template be prepared to prompt the firm's lawyers to include such details in their automated "out of office" e-mail replies.

Hat tip: Am Law Daily.