This office may use e-mail to communicate with you and with others on your behalf. This can include providing legal documents in electronic form. These documents may be formatted as Microsoft Word, PDF or JPEG. If you have privacy concerns with my using email to communicate with you and others, please let me know.
Email correspondence does provide a useful and informal way to correspond with the office to inquire about appointments and the status of legal matters, and to exchange information in electronic form. If you choose to use email as opposed to more secure methods of communication, you should keep the following in mind:
- Response and Reliability of EmailThis office will make every effort to respond to your email and other client communications as promptly as possible. However, email can be unreliable at times. For example, email may bounce back without an error message. File attachments can disappear or be unreadable. It is also possible that our service provider has received an email, but that it got delayed or lost within the provider’s local mail system, or within the firm’s computer systems. If you are in doubt about a message you sent, or were supposed to receive, please call the office to check on its status. Do not send encoded or encrypted mail without first phoning the office. If you have not received a response to email WITHIN TWO (2) DAYS, please phone the office to make sure that your email was received, or to inquire whether the attorney is currently out of the office for illness, vacation, or business reasons.
- Privacy, Security and InterceptionThere are a number of security concerns with the structure of the Internet. Email which travels from one address to another, either via the Internet or entirely within a commercial service provider such as Yahoo, may be monitored by the provider as allowed under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. It may be intercepted by another party, intentionally or unintentionally. You communicate with the office by email at your own option, and at your own risk. If you choose to do so, you should avoid using subject headers which refer to the sensitive content nature of the communication or which contain an opposing party’s name.If you are not comfortable sending information by e-mail, you can send it by fax, first-class mail, registered mail, or overnight delivery. Overnight delivery should be directed the office’s physical location: 200 Third Street, California, PA 15419.
- Attorney–Client PrivilegeAttorney-client privilege protects communications between a lawyer and client or potential client, from discovery by third parties, as long as the communications are not heard by any other parties. The privilege belongs to the client and not the attorney. The client can waive the privilege by allowing third parties to have access to the communications.Although the Pennsylvania Bar and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have not yet ruled on the issue, at least one state has held.that cellular communications are not protected by attorney -client privilege, because of the ease of radio interception. It is possible that this rule could be extended to communications by email between lawyer and client.
To keep from losing your attorney-client privilege, please refrain from sending any information by email that involves current, pending or threatened litigation, or which concerns your potential legal liability or exposure on some matter.
Email Addresses