Dive Brief:

• Because emails are easy, they can become casual, but a lawyer advises remembering that all those electronic missives are part of the project record, and unfortunate ones could come back to haunt you in a legal dispute.
• Eugene Heady of Smith Currie & Hancock advises that nothing go into an email that would not go into a letter if the communication was being committed to paper.
• Humor can bomb with an email recipient and can undercut credibility and professionalism if a judge is reading it months or years afterward and out of context, and the same can be said of off-color language or flippant remarks.

Dive Insight:

Letting one's guard down about what gets said through a keyboard is very easy to do in the world of snappy email messaging, but it's as important as ever to stay professional and on topic. Sticking to one topic and being clear is still the right approach to communication about project issues, and cooling off before writing about something contentious is good advice. And do not think that deleted emails, even drafts, are ever really gone if a determined opponent wants to dig them up during a dispute.