As a lawyer, your email address is an important aspect of your professional image.
It’s not just a means of communication, but also a reflection of your credibility and attention to detail.
Let’s explore why having a proper email address is crucial for lawyers and how it can impact your reputation in the legal profession.
How a proper email address can impact your reputation.
What a Good Email Address Looks Like
Use a Custom Domain
It’s best if you have an email that ends in a custom domain that matches your law firm website. If you don’t have a website you should still get a custom domain that ends in @yourfirmname (or some variation like that).
Using an email address that ends in any of the following is a red flag that signals low stature to many people.
- @aol.com
- @hotmail.com
- @microsoft.com
- @icloud.com
- @yahoo.com
- @compuserve.com
- @gmail.com
Bottom Line
You need to signal the highest level of professionalism in every aspect of your life. Being professional means paying more attention to the digital component of your life now.
If you want better clients then this is essential, not optional.
P.S. If you're a practicing lawyer, check out this Law Practice Assessment . After answering a few questions, you'll get detailed recommendations for improving five key areas of your practice.
stop using gmail it violates privilege
Incredibly individual pleasant website. Enormous info available on few clicks on.|
That's because this blog is a personal site. My law firm site lists my firm email address, which is an @svensonlaw domain.
I saw somebody who use @lawyer.com domain name. I asked them how they get this domain. they told me from the site free ‘www.mail.com’ but now this site doesn’t service for ‘@lawyer.com’ domain name. if I want to use this domain. what should I do? Thanks…
Ernie,
I'm in the process of creating my own domain/website/etc and have re-read this post and a few others. However, I can't help but notice that in your own header you list your email with a gmail domain. I've got to ask why you decided to use your gmail account up there, but then denounce that practice in this post. Thanks in advance.
Congratulations on your fabulous post. It sounds interesting. Thanks a lot. I have checked over a few of your other articles and found some great information too.
Most of the layer firms still don’t have there own website. Its not important that they get a email with the firm name. It can be an addon but that does not matter because we are more into contacting lawyer so why would we care about all these things?
Ernie, like you, I am still floored when I find lawyers using email addresses like yahoo and gmail for professional email. If someone told me 10 years ago that there would be a reason for a post like yours in 2011, I would have laughed.
I agree that not having a professional looking email address really sends a wrong message to potential clients.
Have the office email, but also have the mobile me.com and a couple gmail.com for list serve work. Do you recommend I put the office address in the signature block of the others?
It is so easy and so inexpensive to have your email address at your own domain these days, that when I see a “Professional” email address that is “@aol.com” I immediately assume that the person 1) lacks tech savvy or 2) doesn’t care to the point that I don’t care to do business with them.
From a marketing standpoint, firm names are nowhere near as valuable as generic keywords. This is domaining 101 stuff. Svensonlaw.com doesn’t say jack about your practice, so its value is 0 from a marketability standpoint. That said, you don’t _need_ to market your e-mail address (although you can, it doesn’t hurt), but you should market at least one or two domain names related to your practice. I’m not a hugely successful solo, I’m just a part timer, but what work I’ve gotten has been solely because of SEO/SEM, blogging, twitter, and a few personal network referrals.
Great post, I totally agree with you. Firms need to get their own email addresses. I would like to add some tips to the ones already submitted by Andrea in the comment above:
– when you have to decide the domain name for your firm, you can use websites such as https://domize.com or the brand new https://panabee.com/. They will help you to find the right name!
Great post Ernie!
If you don’t have a privately hosted, firm owned domain – you really do need to get one now.
At a cost of around $10 per year for the domain registration – even if you do not build a website immediately, you can have “professional” email.
A few things to keep in mind when domain shopping:
*get the .com – if the domain you want is not available as a .com then keep looking. Yes, you can also register the .net and .org extensions, but your main domain MUST be a .com
*make it easy – to remember (and spell). A domain name should conjure up an image of you or what you do in the minds of your prospects/clients.
*if your name is not available – go with your location or practice specialty (i.e., DallasProbateAtty)