EMAIL AND LAWYERS users ’ accounts were hacked as far back as 2013 .
Back in the 90 ’ s , I set up my first web site and purchased the melchionne . com domain . An email of gene @ melchionne . com is very memorable . If you can remember my name , you can email me . For a while , internet search engines gave brownie points for having a memorable domain name . Although hat is no longer absolutely true , I purchased ctbankruptcy . com not too long after buying melchionne . com . Since I control the assignment of email addresses at my domains , gene @ ctbankruptcy . com , nacba @ melchionne . com , or gene @ consumerbankruptcytips . com is possible .
Do you live on the corner of Google Street and Yahoo Avenue ? ( Don ’ t Come Around Here No More )
As you can see , I have many email addresses . There are many more than I mentioned here . I have learned to designate specific email addresses for specific purposes . For example , ECF notices go to ECF-only-send-noemail @ ctbankruptcy . com ; I have one for the National Data Center which sends notices on my client ’ s Chapter 13 accounts with the Trustee so I can monitor their payments . I have one for opposing counsel , one for clients , one for family and several for friends . Multiple email addresses are also useful for tracking purposes . I know where clients come from , because I use unique email addresses on my web sites and other marketing materials .
You might ask , how do I keep them straight ? The answer is really simple . Each email account has its own inbox . I set designated times of the day to look at each inbox and deal with the new email in them . From there , I set priorities . I dispatch as many as I can right away . Others are marked for later that day , others are calendared for specific response days and times . You have to decide on a system that works for you . It is easy to get Pavlovian about this . An email comes in and you feel like you must deal with it right away , much like the dogs who drools at the ring of bell .
A note about Gmail and “ cloud ” email . I know that a lot of people are heavily invested in the Google Ecosystem . The problem with Gmail as I see it , is that users get used to looking at their email only in a browser window . Like it or not , using the “ cloud ” means using someone else ’ s computer . The email is not stored locally to you . It is only accessible when you have access to the internet . There may be times when you cannot get that access ( a trip to the remote area of New Mexico taught me that ) or the service itself might be down . Now it is unlikely that Google will ever go down , but other services have been known to vanish overnight . For a while recently , even the once mighty Yahoo was tipping on failure .
For those reasons , I use an email app on my laptop , suck down all the email off the various servers on the internet and delete them from there and store all messages locally . They are sorted and backed up using my 3-2-1 back up process . ( See CBJ Spring 2017 , Tech Talk .) Risks exist with this process . I could have a disk failure , I could delete something I wanted to keep , I could misfile a message where it does not belong . No system is truly idiot proof . ( Make something idiot-proof , and they will build a better idiot . – Murphy ’ s Law .) My server and my laptop and personal computing devices are backed up , so exported and current email is constantly duplicated redundantly so hopefully that will never be a problem .
Rules , rules , and more rules ( So You Want To Be A Rock “ n ’ Roll Star )
In addition to the various email in-boxes , I also use a series of “ rules ” to process as many of the incoming messages as possible automatically . It is important to use whatever Spam™ filters , add-ins , or apps that are available to you . Those messages get trashed right away . Emails from clients get reviewed and responded to as necessary and then sorted into a folder kept for each client . Court notices ( ECF or my state court ) have calendar dates assigned and documents downloaded as necessary and then sorted into a sub-folder for each client . The NACBA communities ( and previously the various NACBA Listserv ) each get their own box and the messages there are threaded into the original post and replies . There my email app tells me how many messages in that box are unread and need attention . ( You go 2 nd Circuit !)
National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys Winter 2018 CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY JOURNAL 43