The Etiquette of Emailing a Law Firm

Dear Lawcrossing,

Ever since I started using e-mail I've forgotten how to stick stamps on envelopes (well, almost). It seems to me that it would be so much easier to e-mail cover letters and resumes to law firms rather than to send these via snail mail, especially since so many law firms now have web sites that let you e-mail them directly. How do employers feel about this?


RM, Okio

Dear RM,

Times they are a-changin', eh, RM? It seems that the time-honored tradition of law school- stamping and sealing hundreds and hundreds of letters addressed to "Hiring Partner"-is a practice facing its golden years.

Ah-but not so fast, RM. LawCrossing posed your question to a number of legal employers, most of whom feel this way about e-mail: While it is perfectly fine for informal correspondence, like a note to an alum from your school asking for advice about breaking into the legal market in their city, or inviting a friend of a friend out for a cup of coffee to pick their brain about being an entertainment lawyer, it's probably too informal for your standard, "Dear Attorney Godzilla: Rodan, your colleague, suggested I should contact you because of your expertise in construction law . . . yadda yadda yadda." If you think about the e-mail you yourself get, RM-and at this point I am not discussing the rather graphic jokes about Bill Gates that seem to make their way into many of the e-mails LawCrossing receives- you'll note that they tend to fall into the "just a quick question" category. Formal correspondence over the Internet is just a little bit off-putting, at least right now.

LawCrossing has a sneaking suspicion that the way society is progressing, this won't be a column for the ages. But for right now, RM-if you insist on doing your job search in writing, keep that tongue busy licking those envelopes. But you know what LawCrossing really wants, RM. She wants you to avoid letters altogether, and e-mail a casual note to those friends of friends (or alums), meet them, and through them meet their friends-your potential employers-in person. That's your best, surest, and fastest way to the job of your dreams, and it avoids writing icky cover letters altogether.