How to slay the email dragon

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Knowing how to master your inbox could decide how well you perform during your training contract.

Achieving an inbox zero sounds too good to be true, especially for trainee solicitors. Dealing with constant email bombardment is an essential skill for trainee solicitors. For example, the day before closing a leveraged finance transaction in your debt finance seat, you could be bombarded with emails from associates, partners, other trainees and paralegals. It is crucial to prioritise which email is the most urgent and respond accordingly. Read this article to learn how to slay the email dragon.

Inbox overwhelm

Being able to read all your emails and decide in which order you would deal with them can be overwhelming, especially when you work in a sector where digital communications is vital.

A good way to stay on top of your emails is by mentally assigning each of them a number from one to eight, one being the most urgent and eight being the least urgent, and what action you should take in response to each email.

Your tasks might include:

• answering a question;
• taking the requested action immediately;
• seeking more information or further clarification;
• making a phone call; and
• consulting an associate or partner working on the deal.

Knowing how to complete the inbox challenge will help you navigate your emails and reduce any stress or anxiety. For example, if your firm is acting for a lender and you receive an email to make some changes, this probably is not as urgent as the security documents that need to be signed by close of business (COB).

Do not make the mistake of prioritising an email from your colleague asking you out to drinks after work when a client is trying to reach you. Keeping on top of your inbox is especially important as a trainee during crucial times of a private equity deal such as:

• the due diligence stage;
• negotiating the terms of the Sale and Purchase agreements;
• drafting a commitment letter; and
• a summary of terms (term sheet).

Being prompt is particularly important for trainees in the debt finance department because they only have two weeks to go from a commitment letter and term sheet to a fully documented financing. Also, there is a lot of client interaction when the client enters full form loan documentation.

During this stage, trainees will become the ‘go-to’ person for a client, who later calls them directly when they have any follow-up questions about the transaction, so it is important the trainee responds promptly and answers any queries the client has.

Flag and review later

Flagged emails can help you to manage your inbox because you can apply a filter and bring up all your flagged emails at once. Flagged emails are like mini to-do lists so you should get into the habit of reviewing your flagged emails weekly, so you don’t miss anything urgent.

Create folders

Outlook allows you to create folders for organising emails. You can create folders to separate emails into:

• emails that involve a task;
• emails awaiting a reply;
• emails that have been delegated; and
• emails relating to past or future meetings.

Alternatively, you can create four basic folders:

• to do;
• follow up;
• someday; and
• non-essential.

When new emails arrive, move them to the appropriate folder. Your ‘to-do’ folder are urgent emails that require more than five minutes of your time and must be done before COB. This could be a folder that relates to specific tasks, such as writing the attendance note of a client meeting or updating your client with new court information via email, as soon as you receive it.

Your ‘follow up’ folder should contain emails that are on hold, perhaps you are waiting to get more information or be delegated a task to do. This folder is likely to include a lot of flagged emails from the other side, perhaps you are waiting for them to disclose or sign some documents before the case can proceed.

Your ‘someday’ folder does not require a response, this is because it is low priority and probably contains long-term projects that you are required to do when you have capacity. Trainees are often encouraged by their business development and marketing team to write legal articles, speak on legal panel talks and attend networking client events. It is best to tackle the someday folder during your least busy times of the year. You can always visit the someday folder when you have some time on your hands.

Your ‘non-essential’ folder is for those subscriptions of external newsletters and articles – you can re-route these emails from your main inbox so they are automatically delivered to this specific folder. This will help you to keep your inbox clear so you don’t miss those client emails.

The only emails that should stay in your inbox are the ones that require urgent action or response such as ongoing matters. These should be requests (eg, a client asking your availability for a meeting) that can be handled quickly, in five minutes or less. If this becomes a chore, you can create a rule that moves all emails from a specific sender or a set of senders to a folder. You can also use keywords to help filter incoming emails.

This email management can help you to:

• clean up your current inbox;
• control the influx of emails; and
• keep clutter from filling it back up.

Remember to check this folder daily. Creating a rule removes the time-consuming labour of manually sorting your emails into their set folders. However, people sometimes forget to check these folders and end up missing important emails.

Finally

A career in law can be fast-paced and demanding so it is vital to know how to manage your time well, from inbox management to time recording. A partner is not expecting you to bill an hour for writing up an attendance note when it could have taken you half that time. Being swift but thorough is the name of the game, especially because lawyers are expected to be good at multitasking.

Part of legal ethics and professional conduct is acting with diligence and promptness when representing a client. However, this does not mean being fast but sloppy. Each task on a legal matter must be handled competently and thoroughly. Good time management helps you become more productive and can ease the stresses of your training contract.

Time management is also one of the top soft skills that graduate recruiters look for; so, you are already an impressive candidate if you can ace your inbox management.

Christianah Babajide (she/her) is the Editor of The Student Lawyer’s diversity and inclusion team. She can be found on LinkedIn and her Instagram handle is @christianahb_.