Law Practice Management
Vacation or Not, Lawyers Should Be Available via E-mail, Cleary Partner Says
Posted May 18, 2009, 01:04 pm CST
By Martha Neil
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.
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