What the Judge Ate for Breakfast » lawsyuits http://blogs.kansas.com/courts News from inside Wichita's courts Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:49:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5.2 en hourly 1 The kinds of emails that get you in trouble http://blogs.kansas.com/courts/2008/12/03/the-kinds-of-emails-that-get-you-in-trouble/ http://blogs.kansas.com/courts/2008/12/03/the-kinds-of-emails-that-get-you-in-trouble/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:55:32 +0000 Ron Sylvester http://blogs.kansas.com/courts/?p=411 My wife says you should never put anything in a company e-mail that you don’t want to be shown to 12 strangers on a big movie screen. She practices employment law, including sexual harassment lawsuits, and she said you wouldn’t believe what people put in e-mails that end up being shown to juries in public courtrooms.

Searching electronic archives of company e-mails and files is becoming an increasingly useful tool for lawyers involved in lawsuits against you or your boss. It’s called “e-discovery.”

Following are phrases that lawyers and investigators like to search for, from Roger Matus’ “Death by E-mail” blog:

  • “I could get into trouble for telling you this, but…”
  • “Delete this email immediately.”
  • “I really shouldn’t put this in writing.”
  • “Don’t ask. You don’t want to know.”
  • “Is this actually legal?”
(Thanks to Walter Olson for pointing this out via Twitter):

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