As frequent readers of this column know, I am not the biggest fan of email.
Each day I find myself answering at least 40 emails on matters relating to my law practice, the books I’ve written, upcoming speaking engagements and messages from old high school friends who are preparing to attend our 50-year reunion this year, to say nothing of (ahem) this column.
Last year, I made a resolution to check emails only twice a day — once in the late morning and again in the late afternoon — as some of the popular “time management” books recommend. When I was answering emails, I did nothing but answer emails. I did not respond to emails between my two timeslots, and any email that came in after “working hours” didn’t get a response until the following morning.
Well, you know what happens to New Year’s resolutions.
When I’m in the middle of doing a “rush” deal for a law client or a reporter is “on deadline” and needs to interview me in the next 10 minutes or a meeting planner needs to book a keynote speaker fast (yes, that’s starting to happen again post-pandemic) and has sent identical messages to 10 of my competitors, responding to emails only “twice a day” simply doesn’t cut it. I would lose too much business if I didn’t respond to certain emails in “real time,” and that’s just a fact of life.
So this year I’m trying another tactic to keep my email traffic under control, at least as much as I can. Since I cannot seem to manage my email traffic by budgeting my time, I’m going to do the next best thing:
I’m going to charge for reading and responding to certain emails from my law clients.
Yes, that’s right.
Since it takes me at least six minutes (one-tenth of an hour) to read and respond to most email messages, I am billing my law clients one-tenth of my hourly rate for each email exchange on their particular matter. When I send a retainer agreement out to a new client, I now include a statement that “A minimum charge of $X (one-tenth of an hour) will be applied for each email or IM text response relating to your matter.” In bold face type, just so the client can’t claim they never saw it.
Similarly, when I send out my monthly invoice to the client, the last line item reads “email exchanges w/client during month — $XXX (13 email exchanges at $Y each).”
Needless to say, some of my law clients aren’t too happy about this. They seem to have the idea that anything happening on the Internet is free of charge, even if their email is a request for legal advice running to 10 or more paragraphs.
But they are paying the fee, however reluctantly, and I am finally being compensated fairly for an activity that takes a goodly chunk out of every working day.
Even better, I am receiving fewer email messages each day. My clients are calling me more often with their thorny, complex legal questions, which is what I would prefer them to do. Not only do they get a better-quality answer that way, but I’m not committing something to writing that may get posted all over the Internet (“Hey, everybody, see what Cliff Ennico thought of this!”).
Now, of course, there are some rules about when I do and do not charge for email responses. Here are some of the ones I’ve come up with:
• I charge only my law clients — I never charge editors, meeting planners, speakers’ bureaus, journalists, friends, relatives or any reader of this column who wants to ask a question (although with my long-winded old high school chums, it’s tempting).
• I charge only those law clients who are paying me by the hour — if I am charging a flat fee for a particular matter, that will include email responses up to a certain point (usually one to two hours’ worth).
I only charge for “substantive” email responses — confirming a lunch date by email or merely forwarding another message to a client without comment will not be charged.
• I make sure (by keeping time sheets) that I am not charging more than 24 hours a day for email responses.
This approach to emails is a “work in progress,” and it may go the way of my “twice a day” program last year.
But so far it seems to be working — I haven’t lost any clients yet because of it — and it may work for your service-oriented business as well. Give it some thought.
And if it works really well, I will consider applying the same approach to my telephone calls, daily trips to the UPS Store and household chores (although sending my spouse that monthly invoice might be tricky...).
Cliff Ennico (crennico@gmail.com) is a syndicated columnist, author and former host of the PBS television series “Money Hunt.”
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