There’s a great scene in The Simpsons that imagines a world with no lawyers:
A lot of lawyers might conjure the same scene in their heads imagining a world with no email.
It’s not a dream for the 75,000 employees of French tech company Altos, which recently implemented a “zero email” policy, citing that only 10% emails Altos employees receive each day are useful. Reportedly, 18% of emails received were spam, which by my reckoning leaves 72% of the emails to be made up of LOL Cat pics and complaints about who should clean the dirty dishes in the break room.
Before you go imagining a quiet and distraction free workplace, though, know that Altos is replacing email with instant messenger and Facebook-style messaging, while continuing to look at other communication tools.
Because if anything says “increased efficiency”, it’s Facebook.
Still, it’s interesting to think about what tools you might use and how you might use them if email were suddenly gone. With the fax machine in its golden years, that future might not be far off for law firms.