Meet Casey, the General Counsel

Casey leads the organization’s legal department, where email is more than routine communication. It is how legal work flows between the department, internal business teams, outside counsel, regulators, vendors, clients, board members, and other external stakeholders.

With so many people and organizations connected to the legal department, inboxes can become busy quickly. An organized inbox is not just about fewer emails. For a legal department, it is about creating a reliable process that supports the organization’s legal work.

*Although this week focuses on legal departments, law firms should continue to use the folder system that has been built for law firms. Also, read through this week for any new insight.

The 60-Day System

Week Six begins the legal department version of the external email workflow. Unlike a law firm, a legal department supports the organization from inside the business, government agency, nonprofit, or institution. External emails will come from other departments and may come from outside counsel, regulators, vendors, customers, business partners, insurers, auditors, contract counterparties, and other entities. Just as with law firms, it is equally important to process these emails to folders and complete the work according to a calendar and task list.

The goal this week is to understand the external email traffic, identify the action required, and create folders that help the legal department manage work without using the inbox as storage.

Two Key Objectives for Success

Everything in this challenge flows from two foundational commitments.

Organize your email system by

• Using folders

• Conversation views

• Rules

• Filters, and

• Automation.

This structural change ensures that your inbox is easier to identify and process, so the right messages reach you at the right time.

Set the Inbox Up for Success

Commit to spending no more than one hour a day reviewing email. You can break that time up into four 15 minutes in the morning, noon, afternoon, and evening. During each review, every email receives a 15-second decision: Delete it, Delegate (Forward) it, or Do it. Email review becomes a scheduled activity rather than a constant interruption during your day.

Build a New Email Habit

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This week is to understand the external email traffic, identify the action required, and create folders that help the legal department manage work without using the inbox as storage.

Build the Process. Identify the Action. Confidently Control.

Week Six: Build the Legal Department External Email Folders

This Week, Focus On

1. Identifying the external sender.

2. Determining the action from the email.

3. Moving the email.

Day 37

Identify the Team’s Internal Email Workflows

You will begin by looking closely at who is bringing work into the legal department inbox from other departments and outside the organization. External legal department emails are not all the same. Some create contract questions, some raise regulatory or compliance issues, some require outside counsel direction, some include deadlines, and others need to be saved, assigned, or answered. Before participants can build useful folders, rules, or follow-up routines, they must first understand where the external email traffic is coming from and what kind of legal work each source usually creates. This review sets up the next several days of the Challenge, when participants will sort external emails by work type, create folders, and begin moving messages out of the inbox with a clearer purpose.

Because each organization has different business needs, legal departments may receive external emails from some or all the following sources:

• Outside counsel

• Regulators and government agencies

• Contract counterparties

• Customers, tenants, vendors, suppliers, and business partners

• Insurance carriers, brokers, and claims administrators

• Auditors, accountants, tax advisors, and finance partners

• HR vendors and employment counsel

• Privacy, cybersecurity, and compliance vendors

• Intellectual property counsel and filing vendors

• Board portal providers, registered agents, and governance vendors

• Legal technology providers

• Claimants, complainants, or third-party representatives

Participants do not need to identify every possible external sender. Legal departments receive a wide variety of emails because the legal team supports many different functions across the organization. The priority is to identify the recurring external senders or sender types that regularly create legal work, require review, trigger deadlines, request decisions, or need follow-up.

Action Step:

Use a shared document or instant messaging system to create a list of the team’s most common internal email workflows. Organize the workflows into five to seven categories.

DAY 38

Create Category or Action Folders and Calendar for Work Completion

You should identify the type of work created by the emails. The Legal Dept performs a variety of legal duties for the organization. You should categorize these duties. Common legal department duty categories, or action folders, include:

• Legal review needed

• Legal analysis and approval needed

• Negotiation, mediation, or arbitration needed

• External filing needed

• Internal filing needed

• Calendar or docketing needed

• Reporting needed

• Legal drafting needed

• Policy drafting needed

The right folder structure may depend on the size of the legal department and how work is assigned. Larger legal departments may find action folders more useful because different team members handle separate subject areas and the action folders identify the action for the assigned subject area. But smaller legal departments may need a different approach. If one attorney or a small team manages multiple subject areas, legal category review folders may be easier to organize emails. For example, one attorney or support staff may handle the review, analysis, drafting, negotiation, and management of contract matters, regulatory matters, employment matters, or other recurring legal work. In that situation, organizing emails by legal category can help the department see the type of work waiting for review. The following are examples of legal category review folders:

• Contract review

• Regulatory and compliance review

• Litigation and claims review

• Insurance and risk review

• Employment review

• Privacy and cybersecurity review

• Governance and the Board review

• Intellectual property, copyright, and trademark review

• Invoice or billing review

• Business partner relationships review

• Commercial Property review

After creating action or category folders, schedule regular review time for each folder. A folder is only useful if someone checks it and completes the work inside it. Use that scheduled time to review the emails, make decisions, complete tasks, assign work, save documents, or move items to the next step. If an email contains a deadline, renewal date, response date, or follow-up date, make sure it is also entered into the approved calendar, docketing system, task system, or other deadline-tracking process. Do not rely on the folder alone to remind you that legal work is due.

For further assistance, Download and Print the 'Legal Dept Category Folder Inbox System'

Action Step:

Identify the work that is associated with the external senders. Create action or legal category folders.

DAY 39

Build Outside Counsel and Court Filings Email Workflows

Now that you have identified recurring external senders and created action or category folders, take a closer look at whether each email is moving to the right place. The goal is to improve accuracy, reduce the risk of important legal work being hidden in the wrong folder, and make sure each folder reflects how you will know your next step whether by action or category. If a needed folder is missing, create it. If an email does not fit the workflow you first selected, update the workflow and move the email to the correct folder. Over the next few days, you will test and refine the external legal department email workflows you began building this week.

Today, you will focus on two groups of senders that may have the most consistency in next actions: court filing emails and outside counsel emails.

During each email review session, manually move new external emails into the folder that matches the next required action or legal category. Pay close attention to the sender, subject line, and recurring keywords in court filing and outside counsel emails. The goal is to confirm that each email is being routed accurately and to identify patterns that may later support safe rules or filters.

Court filing emails may be easier to manage when the organization uses a dedicated email address for court notices or electronic filing notifications. Even then, the legal department still needs a workflow for identifying documents that require attention, such as trial settings, judgments, or significant orders that require review. These emails should move to the appropriate action or category folder when they arrive, rather than remaining in the inbox.

When reviewing outside counsel emails for patterns, ask yourself:

• · Which outside counsel contacts send emails most often?

• · What recurring topic keywords appear in the subject line or body of outside counsel (or staff) emails?

• · Which outside counsel keywords usually require a response, review, assignment, or scheduling?

If outside counsel emails follow a recurring pattern, add those expectations to the Outside Counsel Guidelines. For example, the guidelines may ask outside counsel to use agreed subject-line terms, identify deadlines clearly, include the matter name, or state the requested legal department action at the top of the email. Clear guidelines help outside counsel send emails that are easier to review, route, and complete.

Action Step:

Action Step:

During your email review sessions, conduct your 15-Second Email Decision Rule on all new emails..

For court filing emails, write down the document types or court notices that require legal department awareness, review, calendaring, or follow-up. Move those emails to the appropriate review, calendar, docketing, or legal category folder upon receipt.

Build Regulatory, Intellectual Property Filings, and Licensing Email Workflows

DAY 40

Now that you have identified recurring external senders and created action or category folders, take a closer look at whether each email is moving to the right place. The goal is to improve accuracy, reduce the risk of important legal work being hidden in the wrong folder, and make sure each folder reflects how you will know your next step whether by action or category. If a needed folder is missing, create it. If an email does not fit the workflow you first selected, update the workflow and move the email to the correct folder. Over the next few days, you will test and refine the external legal department email workflows you began building this week.

Today, you will focus on regulatory, intellectual property filings, and licensing emails.

During each email review session, manually move new external emails into the folder that matches the next required action or legal category. Pay close attention to the sender, subject line, and recurring keywords in regulatory, intellectual property filings, and licensing emails. The goal is to confirm that each email is being routed accurately and to identify patterns that may later support safe rules or filters.

For regulatory, intellectual property filings, and licensing, there are specific local, state, and federal agencies that will email. In addition, you may receive emails from administrators or counsel you hired to handle your regulatory, intellectual property filings, and licensing matters. Look for patterns in these emails, such as:

• Agency inquiries

• Audit requests

• Reporting deadlines

• Licensing issues

• Compliance certifications

• Investigation notices

• Policy updates

• Government correspondence

The senders and patterns you find will be some of your keywords to identify the type of email and move the email to the correct action or category folder.

Action Step:

Action Step:

During your email review sessions, conduct your 15-Second Email Decision Rule on all new emails.

For regulatory, intellectual property, or licensing emails move to the applicable action folder or category folder. If the email contains a date or deadline, also ensure that the person responsible for calendaring and docketing deadlines move the email to the For Internal File / Calendar folder.

DAY 41

Build Vendors, Suppliers and Business Partners Workflows

Now that you have identified recurring external senders and created action or category folders, take a closer look at whether each email is moving to the right place. The goal is to improve accuracy, reduce the risk of important legal work being hidden in the wrong folder, and make sure each folder reflects how you will know your next step whether by action or category. If a needed folder is missing, create it. If an email does not fit the workflow you first selected, update the workflow and move the email to the correct folder. Over the next few days, you will test and refine the external legal department email workflows you began building this week.

Today, you will focus on vendors, suppliers, and business partners emails.

During each email review session, manually move new external emails into the folder that matches the next required action or legal category. Pay close attention to the sender, subject line, and recurring keywords in vendors, suppliers, and business partners emails. The goal is to confirm that each email is being routed accurately and to identify patterns that may later support safe rules or filters.

Vendors, suppliers, and business partners are development companies that provide the software for your legal operations, process servers, document printing and production companies, court reporters, translation services, consultants, distributors, investigators, widget suppliers, business news suppliers, among others. Look for patterns in these emails, such as:

• New contract requests

• Contract redlines

• Renewal notices

• Termination notices

• Vendor terms

• Customer agreements

• NDAs

• Statements of work

• Business partner approvals

• News articles or digests

The senders and patterns you find will be some of your keywords to identify the type of email and move the email to the correct action or category folder.

Action Step:

During your email review sessions, conduct your 15-Second Email Decision Rule on all new emails.

Action Step:

For vendors, suppliers, and business partners emails move to the applicable action folder or category folder. If the email contains a date or deadline, also ensure that the person responsible for calendaring and docketing deadlines move the email to the For Internal File / Calendar folder.

Action Step:

For all new emails, conduct your one-hour a day scheduled email review. Use the 15-second decision rule and move the email to one of your five core folders (or subfolders).

Action Step:

Complete email-related tasks during the time specifically scheduled for that purpose. Once each task is complete, archive or delete the corresponding email.

Action Step:

For outside counsel external emails, write down common senders and topic keywords that may support future rules or filters.

Action Step:

For regulatory, intellectual property, or licensing emails, write down common senders and topic keywords that may support future rules or filters.

Action Step:

For vendors, suppliers, and business partners emails, write down common senders and topic keywords that may support future rules or filters.

Week Two Goals

By the end of Week Six, participants should have:

• Identified major external email source

• Created action or legal category folders for external legal department emails

• Organized external emails by action or legal category

• For each folder, Included the time to do the work on your calendar

Congratulations on completing Week Six of this 60-day Challenge!

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