For many lawyers, email is the bane of their existence. I miss the days where you could only get triggered by an email during work hours when you were sitting in front of the desk. Now, we’re all walking around with smartphones strapped to our hands and we can get triggered anytime, anywhere. Human bodies just weren’t designed to walk around with dopamine or cortisol-triggering devices.
We’ve all experienced receiving an email from someone that is so obnoxious, so infuriating, and so over the top that you see red. You can feel your heart racing, intense heat rising to the face, increasing pulsation in arms, hands, legs, and feet, stomach tightening, etc. The email makes you so angry that you swear you’ll crush this person, no matter the cost. You daydream about 101 different ways you can win and destroy this person.
Here are 10 tips for responding to nastygrams and for sending emails to increase the likelihood of getting what you want.
1. Check your emotions
When you’re seeing red, there’s an impulse to take action — NOW. This is because when we’re angry, there is a physical reaction that prepares us to take action. Very useful when being chased by a saber-toothed tiger. Not so useful when you need to engage in a civilized dialogue.
Here’s what happens to our brains when we’re angry:
In the brain’s medial temporal lobe, the amygdala, which responds to outside stimuli, coordinates the release of neurotransmitters — cathecholamine — that leads to a burst of energy which prepares us for physical action. During this process, hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine are also released, increasing our blood pressure. [Medical Daily]
So, before you hit “send,” check your emotions. If you’re angry, extremely frustrated, or highly emotional, it’s time to step away from the keyboard. Go talk to a colleague, walk up and down the hall, go to the gym, meditate, practice diaphragmatic breathing, or whatever it is you do to relax.
2. Use BIFF
This tip came from attorney Carole Bess:
Read BIFF from author William Eddy. He’s a therapist, lawyer, and mediator.
- Brief: Keep it short and sweet so that you don’t give high conflict personalities much to chew on.
- Informative: State concisely just the facts.
- Friendly: For example, “I understand you’re going through a difficult time, but I need you to … give me the information, schedule the hearing, etc.”
- Firm: For example, “Per the court’s trial schedule, we do need to resolve this issue before our next hearing date.”
3. Don’t let other people’s behavior drag you into the gutter
It’s of course easy to write pleasant, friendly, and happy emails in response to pleasant, friendly, and happy emails. However, how do you respond to those emails that punch below the belt or are simply designed to provoke you?
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” -George Bernard Shaw
Having clarity about the type of attorney you want to be and what your higher values are will help to keep you grounded. For me, I always aspire to approach each situation with integrity, compassion, and kindness.
I once had an opposing counsel who started every email by saying, “When you’ve been practicing law for as long as I have, you’ll learn…” He was one of those attorneys that still had an aol.com email address. Each email was more condescending than the last. After many months of fruitless negotiation attempts, my client finally had enough and decided to file for bankruptcy. It would’ve been easy enough to add a snarky comment when I sent the Notice of Automatic Stay, but I didn’t.
4. Give em’ what they want (when possible)
This tip is from attorney and author, J. Kim Wright:
“To get what I want, I should figure out what they want and find a way to give it to them.”
Often, I find that writing the ugly, reactive version and very carefully NOT sending it lets off the steam, and a more civilized version can then follow, usually in a few days. That doesn’t always work, but I get some satisfaction from knowing that they’re waiting for me to react in anger and are wondering when the bomb will drop.
5. Get clarity on your intention — focus on the end goal
It’s very tempting to try and “win” every email, to view every interaction with the opposing counsel as hand-to-hand combat. Before hitting “send,” ask yourself — what is my long term goal? What do I hope to gain from sending this email? And is there a way to increase the possibility of getting what I want?
From attorney Sam Pryor:
“A definite challenge, but it helps to remind myself that those people who send emails so annoying that I’m immediately tempted to respond, are likely to be those people completely blocked to my persuasive, unchallengeable, pithy responses. Since they’re not going to get it, why exactly am I indulging the temptation?”
What tips do you have for managing highly emotional emails?
This article previously appeared on Above the Law.