Remember those days not so far in the distant past when you sent letters to opposing counsel in the mail? Then you went about your business and expected it would take weeks for a response.
Or you called and left a message, then waited a few days for a return phone call.
Cases still moved forward. Work still got done. Life still went on. (People were way less anxious, too.)
Technology’s Negative Impact on Legal Culture
While technology has brought about amazing advances to our society, it has also fueled an epidemic of stress and burnout.
I often hear from attorneys that they feel the need to respond to emails immediately. If they don’t, they often feel pressure, or even guilt. These negative reactions are a direct result of technology’s impact on legal culture.
Changing communication etiquette in the legal industry will require both lawyers and law firms to change their behavior and set boundaries.
Whether you are an associate attorney, a partner, a solopreneur doing it all on your own, or a solopreneur with support staff, this applies to you.
Do these situations sound familiar?
Email from a Senior Partner or Colleague
You’re in the middle of gathering evidence on a case when you receive an email from your senior partner or colleague. You think, “I have to show them I’m working.” Then your thoughts spiral into: “If I don’t respond, they’re going to think I’m not working or I’m behind on my work.” You feel like you have to stop everything to respond immediately.
Email from a Client
You’re about to go to lunch when you receive an email from your client (internal or external). You think, “I have to show I’m caught up on the case.” Then your thoughts spiral again: “If I take too long, they might think I’m not working on their case.” “I don’t want my clients to be upset with me.” “I have to always be available to my clients.” Now, you feel like you have to miss lunch to respond right away.
Lawyers can also respond quickly because they’re firing off an emotional response to an email from opposing counsel.
I have seen an increase in attorney’s beliefs that if they don’t respond to an email immediately, there will be an automatic assumption that they are slacking, especially in this time of remote work. These beliefs then spiral into fears about job performance and job security, and the end result is inevitably the same: They treat every email with urgency. However, when you respond immediately to emails, you’re also communicating how you operate and what can be expected from you. The expectation that you are setting is that you will allow your time and agenda to be hijacked by someone else’s.
Occasionally, I do hear from some lawyers who don’t buy into this immediate response social norm. They’re comfortable in their ability to set boundaries with emails, and they wish the whole of the legal industry would just chill out on response time!
These lawyers are few and far between, but how impactful would it be on the wellbeing of legal culture if everyone got on the same page and slowed down a little bit?
But, how can we change our habits and cultural norms? How can we learn to set boundaries?
We have to step back and ask ourselves: Why are we doing it this way? Is this serving me or others well? Is there a different, better way?
And then, you have to be willing to do things differently, even if others continue with old patterns. You have to be willing to set boundaries, even if others don’t understand or agree with your actions. You have to be willing to show others that only you are in control of your time.
Changing culture norms starts with you. Tweet ThisHere are six actionable tips to set boundaries with your inbox:
1. Close Your Email During the Workday
When you get notifications on your phone or the inbox on your computer dings, your brain releases cortisol. This happens because your brain is receiving a signal that there is something out there or that something could be wrong. In response, your anxiety raises, which leads you to compulsively check those notifications to make sure everything is okay. That seemingly simple act of checking the email lowers your anxiety. However, you’re teaching yourself the habit that the only way to manage your anxiety or stress is to look at the notification. This habit eats into productivity and pumps cortisol through your body all day long. Picture this:
You are working in a flow state on a project, and *ding,* here comes an email on your open inbox or on your phone.
Ugh. The stress response flows through your body, and you feel like you need to attend to that email immediately (without stopping to think if that is true or not). You start focusing on that task, and your flow state is interrupted.
20 minutes (or more) later, when that “fire” is put out, you get back to your original project. Except now it takes your brain an average of 7 minutes to get back to where it was in the flow of the project.
Bam. 27 minutes of your time not used as efficiently or productively as you wanted. Distraction is ruling the roost. Someone else’s agenda has superseded yours. You feel out of control and wonder how you didn’t get everything accomplished you wanted to during the day.
Instead, simply close out your inbox and turn off notifications during the workday. Schedule time on your calendar to check your email two or three times daily so that you’re not interrupted all day long.
2. Wait 24 Hours Before Responding
Practice intentionally waiting 24 hours before responding to email – unless it’s an emergency or high priority. Often what we believe in our mind is an emergency, is not actually an emergency. Or our clients think it’s an emergency and want an ASAP response. But notice that I keep using the word “believe.” Just because we think something, doesn’t mean it’s true.
This also helps you challenge your thoughts and beliefs that others are expecting an immediate response. How do you know this to be true? They may not. You feel that way based on how you’re thinking and how you’ve been operating.
Try it. Wait 24 hours and give yourself evidence that everything is okay in the end, even though you didn’t respond immediately.
I do this regularly. I am communicating to others that, yes, you will get a response from me, but you don’t automatically move up to the #1 priority on my list just because you sent me a message.
3. Schedule Your Emails to “Send Later”
When emailing employees under you, use the “Send Later” feature on your email to schedule it to be sent in the future.
Major Pet Peeve: Law firms that espouse work-life balance and then do nothing to put this into practice.
Your email dings at 10:30 p.m. with the dreaded “???” email from a senior partner. (Don’t get me started on the three question mark email.) Or two words. Or just the fact that they are sending an email at 10:30 p.m. in general. This communicates: I am working. Employees under this partner are going to feel obligated to respond. They think, “Oh, if he/she is working, I should be working, too.”
If you are choosing to work at 10:30 p.m., it may be out of necessity and flexibility right now due to the pandemic, or it may be because you have poor boundaries around work, too. That’s your choice. But be mindful of what this is going to communicate to the lawyers and staff under you. Even if you verbally state, “I don’t want you working late,” your actions communicate an entirely different message. Just like children model their parent’s behavior, the people you supervise look to you for what they need to do.
If you want to create a culture of work-life balance and encourage disconnecting from work, then schedule the email to send at 8 am. And if you don’t, then stop talking about creating a culture of work-life balance or promoting that your firm has it when you interview employees.
When I was a Regional Manager for a mental health agency, I had a staff of 25 therapists and case managers, as well as an office staff. I covered 16 counties and was the supervising clinician on 1,000+ client cases at any given time. In other words, I worked a lot of hours. I was consistently working until 10-11 every night doing chart audits, following up on tasks, etc. The management above me only wanted the therapists and case managers to be working more, seeing more clients, and getting all of the billing turned in. (Sound familiar?!)
I made sure one way that I could help my staff set boundaries and maintain healthy work-life balance was to not email them after 6 p.m. If there was a client emergency, I would call them – or vice versa. They would automatically feel compelled to respond if I sent them a late-night email, even if I said I wasn’t expecting a response until the morning. So, I started scheduling them to “Send Later” in the morning.
4. Turn Off Notifications at Night
Delete email from your phone or turn off notifications after a certain time each evening (e.g., 6 p.m.). We are addicted to our phones. We are addicted to checking our email. This tremendously impacts our stress, anxiety, and inability to disconnect from work. The only way we get out of these habits is to set boundaries and build new habits. You may be anxious for the first few days, but there are strategies to manage that anxiety.
Set up communication protocols with staff, colleagues, and clients if you work in an area of law that includes emergency issues. You can say, “If it is an emergency after 6 p.m., call me. Otherwise, any email communication will receive a response within 24 business hours.”
5. Challenge Your Beliefs
Challenge your own beliefs that email requires an immediate response. Ask yourself why you have these beliefs, and what fears are driving them. Are any of these fears unfounded? What evidence do you have that this is the expectation? What new beliefs do you want to have? What are you willing to test out and see what happens? Maybe you will show yourself that what you expect to happen, won’t.
It is OKAY for other people to wait. It is not your job to manage their anxiety around wanting and needing information. That’s their job.
6. Don’t Apologize
NEVER state, “I apologize for my delayed response.”
All this does is make you feel guilty and wrong for taking time to respond, reinforcing your beliefs that you need to respond faster and that you are somehow failing.
STOP. This is a bullshit belief that is not serving you.
If you must acknowledge a delay in response time for whatever reason, try “Thank you for your patience.” You don’t owe anyone an explanation or justification for why it took you 3-5 days to respond, rather than 2 hours.
Try it. See how less stressed and guilty you feel. See how much more in control of your time, your agenda, and your emotions you feel.
Remember, you only have control over yourself. Start looking at your practices and habits. If you are a leader in a firm, start having discussions with your peers about whether your practices are modeling and supporting that work-life balance you desire.
So, who is on board with being a change agent in the never-ending flurry of communication happening in the legal industry?
If you want to learn how to set boundaries with your email and get control over your calendar and time, book a discovery call. I can help!