Attorney Retention Best Practice: Curbing Lawyers' Email Use on Weekends

The latest attorney retention best practice from the Project for Attorney Retention is instituting policies and technologies to curb email use on weekends. While occasionally there may truly be emergencies that necessitate intruding on an attorney's personal time over the weekend, in most cases email communications can wait until Monday.

As an example from outside legal industry, PAR cited a message displayed to PriceWaterhouse professionals who log in over the weekend urging them to be respectful of their colleague's personal time. encourage attorneys who send e-mails over the weekend to include a deadline.

PAR recommends that firms require attorneys sending emails to colleagues over the weekend specify if an email is an emergency requiring immediate attention. This way recipients can make an educated decision about whether or not to focus on the matter over the weekend.