Email management for law firms is essential in an industry where efficient communication is paramount.

Law firms are inundated with a barrage of emails daily, making email management not just a necessity but a critical aspect of their operations.

We’ll delve into the significance of email management for law firms, exploring the challenges, solutions, and emerging trends that can transform the way legal professionals handle their digital correspondence.

Deciding how to manage emails for your firm is essential. Be sure to pay close attention to seemingly minute processes, for they can either add to or subtract from your firm’s overall efficiency and success.

The Complete Guide to Email Management for Law Firms

Managing email is simple for a solo or small law practice.

However, as your practice grows, so will the volume of documents, content and email. Simple email management practices that worked before are often outgrown as law firms evolve.

Email is a core component of nearly any business, including and especially law firms.

Email software (such as Outlook or Gmail) tends to be good at sending and receiving email… but often gets used by lawyers and legal professionals to handle other tasks, such as:

As a result your email inbox becomes a defacto part of your client/case management system. The problem is: Email clients were never made to serve this purpose.

Law firms often encounter several challenges in email management:

According to numbers published in Adobe’s Email Usage Study, consumers spend approximately 5 hours a day checking work email. From client communications to regulatory updates, your inbox is home to critical information you need to run your firm.

Unfortunately, your inbox can quickly become disorganized.

Critical conversations can accidentally get deleted while important documents can be lost deep within threads. Searching for this information is time-consuming and, if you bill by the hour, a drain on your bottom line.

Email Management Challenges

Or:  “The Problem with Email Software for Managing Email.”

Luckily, there are tools available to you to help you meet these challenges head-on. Specifically: Email Management.  

Email Management functionality is a subset of Document Management functionality, often found in a Document Management System (DMS).

2. Saving Emails to PDF

Some law firms attempt to avoid disparate systems by saving all emails as PDFs and storing them with their legal documents. However, this process is cumbersome and time-consuming.

That’s assuming you and your team even remember to save every document from each email.

3. Saving Emails to Practice Management Software

Some Law Practice Management systems offer basic email management, allowing you to save emails to a matter or use a CC/BCC address to file them in your case management software.

While this is better than relying on Outlook folders, Document Management Systems (DMS) are generally better for email management. Case management apps, even if they allow email storage, often lack effective search capabilities.

Clunky indexing makes finding important documents difficult, and in a busy firm, even a few minutes spent searching for a file is too long.

Features of an Email Management System

To get a true picture of what an EMS does when compared with default methods, it’s best to take a look at the features.

Any solid law firm email management system should consist of:

Your EMS should integrate with your existing tools. If you already have a system in place, refine it with these guidelines. If not, consider an overhaul to add more practical features. Keep in mind that any new system will require training.

For example, if you use Outlook or Office 365, your EMS should integrate with Microsoft tools. If you use Gmail, it should be Gmail-compatible.

If the EMS doesn’t work with your current email client, find a different solution—this compatibility is crucial.

Next, integrate your EMS with your email service. Don’t worry—if you’ve considered your email client, the process should go smoothly.

Quick tip: Choose an email client with good support. If something goes wrong, you’ll want help available when needed.

Once integrated, start organizing your emails. Create folders for each client or matter, and set these up for active clients right away to stay ahead on email management.

As you take on new clients, simply add new folders. Most EMS options let you do this directly within your email, making it easy to organize without switching between multiple tools.

If you’re storing emails elsewhere, organize them using your new EMS. This ensures consistent access to all files.

While this step may be tedious, integrating old emails into the system will improve organization going forward.

Need extra storage to ensure you never lose an email? An email archive tool is a great solution. These tools store copies of every email sent or received by your law firm, covering any missed or accidentally deleted emails.

Options like Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving integrate seamlessly with Outlook.

Features of a Document Management System (DMS)

Of course, a DMS will include robust email management features such as the ability to save emails to specific matters straight from your inbox.

However, there are other features included inside a DMS that will greatly benefit your firm: