This article first appeared in the Philadelphia Lawyer, a quarterly publication of the Philadelphia Bar Association, in the Summer 2003 issue.

By David Whelan, Director, ABA Legal Technology Resource Center

Ever get the feeling that you will never escape e-mail? It is firmly a part of every lawyer’s life and if you have not started managing it, there is no time like the present. It is not just a matter of sending and receiving e-mail any more. Viruses, attachments, and spam make communicating electronically more complex. There are tools you can use and habits you can get into to manage the glut of e-mail. Let’s deal with the most annoying messages first - spam.

Some will define spam more broadly but a good definition comes from Hormel Foods - who knows about Spam better than they do - who defines little ‘s’ spam as unsolicited commercial e-mail. You probably also receive solicited commercial e-mail but, in most cases, you have either proactively authorized delivery or neglected to reject an offer for e-mail communication. Most commercial messages offer an option to stop future messages.

A first step is to filter out the e-mail you don’t want to receive. Your firm should purchase spam blocking services or software. Some software sits on your e-mail server - before your e-mail messages get to you - and looks at all the messages coming in. If a message comes from an unauthorized location or contains unapproved content, the software intercepts the message and throws it out. You might add Brightmail (http://www.brightmail.com) to your mail server or use a server like 602Software’s LAN Suite (http://www.602software.com) that incorporates tools that rely on Internet "blacklists" for blocking incoming e-mail. You can also use a third-party spam blocking site that routes your e-mail to you.

The second kind sits on your computer, and looks at the e-mail as it comes into your Inbox and puts unauthorized files into a junk or trash folder. In both cases, the number of e-mails you receive will decrease. Some common desktop spam products are McAfee’s Spamkiller (http://www.mcafee.com), Qurb (http://www.qurb.com), or Spamnix (http://www.spamnix.com). If you buy software for your computer, make sure it works with your e-mail client - Microsoft Outlook, Qualcomm’s Eudora, and so on. Webattack has a great list of both free and inexpensive anti-spam tools (http://www.webattack.com/freeware/comm/fwspam.shtml).

Services like the free Spamgourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com) or free Mailshell (http://www.mailshell.com) allow you to create disposable e-mail addresses. The disposable address is really an e-mail alias. You give out the disposable address (books.5.lawfirm@spamgourmet.com) and when a company uses that information to send you information, the e-mail goes first to your e-mail alias, and then is routed forward to your real address (frank@lawfirm.com).

You’ve set up your anti-spam software and you are using disposable e-mail addresses to avoid your real e-mail address being sold and misused. Now you have to deal with the e-mail you are still receiving.

One often overlooked e-mail feature is filtering. Unlike spam filters that look for content to block, e-mail filters allow you to presort e-mail as it arrives. The rules you use to filter the e-mail is completely up to you. When you apply an e-mail filter, you can have your e-mail software do something to the message for you. Outlook users can check the Tools menu to access the Rules Wizard or visit Slipstick.com to learn more about filtering rules (http://www.slipstick.com/rules/index.htm). An e-mail filter looks at parts of an e-mail - subject line, sender address, recipient address, whether a file is attached - and then, based on criteria you set, does something with that e-mail. It might move it, delete it, or forward it to someone with whom you’d like to share it.

One of the best resources to filter is a discussion list. A discussion list is where individuals subscribe to an e-mail discussion on a particular topic. One person sends a message to the list, and it is distributed to all subscribers. You can then respond to the list and participate in the conversation. The Philadelphia Bar has a number of Members-only lists (http://www.philadelphiabar.org/member/sections/discussionlists.asp). If you are not a regular participant, but just lurk and listen, you might consider receiving the list in a digest format. The digest gathers together all the messages sent out in a day and, rather than giving you all 10 or 50 or 100, gives you one message with the 10 or 50 or 100 in it. You can then scan the single message all at once, rather than being distracted throughout the day. Whether using a digest or not, a filter can place all of your messages from any given list, say the Sole and Small Firm Management list, into a special folder, to be read later.

The message is finally in your folder and you are ready to read it. But wait - you see a small paper clip and realize that, in addition to the message you can read, there is an attachment - a spreadsheet, database, presentation, or other file that is not part of the text and cannot be sent as part of the actual message - that the sender wants you to read. Be very afraid of attachments. If a virus is going to wreak havoc on your computer, it will almost always come in an attachment. A virus is a small program that is developed so that it will do something to your computer: delete files, change functions, format the hard drive, etc. Worms are a variant of viruses that perform some malicious act with your computer, not necessarily to it, like resending themselves to everyone in your address book, for example. Instead of double-clicking on the paper clip or attachment icon, save the file to your computer - look for a ‘Save Attachments’ option on your e-mail software’s FILE menu. Now you have a copy on your computer to investigate, and you should start up your anti-virus software to determine whether there is anything in the file to be concerned about. In many cases, you can right-click your mouse to start your anti-virus software.

Managing your e-mail well is a good practice and time management habit. A high volume of messages can easily swamp you. If you begin to organize and plan for your e-mail use, you will find e-mail software to be a powerful resource to act as a gatekeeper and make sure you do not waste valuable practice time looking at useless information.