How to craft a business email that will surely get you sued

Email is ubiquitous. It is so ingrained in our personal and professional lives that we sometimes forget that email creates a paper trail that never goes away.

Even super-smart people stumble occasionally when dealing with email. In a recent piece on The Verge, a gadget blog, the emails of some of Silicon Valley’s most famous and successful CEOs show that no one is immune.

The emails came out as part of a lawsuit alleging that several technology companies conspired to prevent employees from moving to other companies. EricSchmidt008
Check out this gem from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

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You can see the entire collection of email as well as some solid reporting on the issues at The Verge.

This situation brings to mind a few tips for your email writing that will hopefully help you not get sued:

1. If it could be embarrassing, don’t write it.
2. Remember as you type out that email: email, like diamonds, is forever.
3. Send emails only to the people who absolutely have to see them.

Posted by Shawn Roberts

On this blog, I write about and try to answer practical Oklahoma legal questions. My focus and most experience is in estate planning and business issues including Oklahoma non-compete law. I make a living as an attorney in the law firm I founded, Shawn J. Roberts, P.C. in Oklahoma City. I live in Edmond with my wife Amy and my two children, Sam (19) and David (11). We live precisely in the path of where the "wind comes sweeping down the plains."