Attorneys love paper. When a dispute occurs on a construction project and attorneys become involved, they laboriously go through all of the emails, project notes and documents. What might have been an innocent project site report or email, can suddenly become a smoking gun projected on a large screen as a key exhibit at a trial. Therefore, you should think carefully about what you write and how it is written. Some ideas to consider:
- Write emails and text messages to folks outside of your company with the same formality as if you were writing a letter.
- Keep in mind that anything you write to your coworkers is discoverable. Emails and text messages continue to exist even after you have deleted them. There is an entire industry which works with attorneys to retrieve this kind of information. Do you want that snippy comment you made about the project manager to be a key exhibit?
- Don’t use slang or other abbreviations in your messages. You will look unprofessional at best when the document is displayed as an exhibit at trial.
- Watch the words that you use. If your site report says that “we proofrolled the site” someone will certainly argue that you were doing more than simply watching the contractor perform a proofroll. If your report says that you performed a site “inspection”, that implies something more than observation services.
- Talk about the importance of the content of written communications with your younger coworkers. They used to texting and using social media but may forget to closely consider the content of their communications.