10 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Emails As An In-House Lawyer

Deep Dive

In-House Lawyers Send Dozens of Emails Each Week. Make Sure Yours Are Highly Effective.

Career stagnation is a common, though often unspoken, fear of many ambitious in-house lawyers.

You’re sharp, experienced, and adding value.

But you wonder: are you still growing? Does your in-house career have room to progress, or is this all there is?

The good news is that stagnation isn’t inevitable. With the right mindset and strategy, you can stay indispensable and put your career on the upward trajectory you want.

Here’s how.

1. Write for Your Audience.

As an in-house lawyer, your audience is often business colleagues. This is a very different audience than you may have written for before, such as when you were a law firm lawyer writing a brief or a law student taking an exam. I promise you that your colleagues will not be impressed by footnotes or a list of every possible issue you brainstorm.

Write in plain English and avoid legalese. If you use abbreviations or shorthand, make sure they mean the same thing to everyone you’re writing to (in my own role, BAA often means a Business Associate Agreement, but it just as frequently means a Broad Agency Announcement).

Keep your specific audience in mind, too. The extent to which you need to explain a particular concept depends on who you’re writing to, their experience with the issue, your relationship with them, etc. Your note to a senior executive may need to be more high-level strategic takeaways, compared to one to an engineer building a product on which you’re advising.

Common sense is a great guide here—just don’t forget to use it.

2. Use Your Subject Line Effectively

A great subject line lets your reader know what to expect in the email before they even open it. Keep it specific, but short.

3. Assume Your Reader Is Skimming

Everyone gets lots of email. Your reader wants the key points of your email as quickly as possible. Be concise.

For everyday emails, assume your reader will skim and draft accordingly.

Make sure you open with your purpose. Is this an update email, or one requiring action? Is this following up on an ongoing conversation, or the start of something new?

4. Use Bullet Points or Lists

Building on the above: readability is key.

Bullet points or lists make your email easier to read and the key points more likely to be seen, especially if someone is reading on their phone.

5. Center on Business Needs, Not the Law

Focus on why what you are saying matters to your reader, rather than focusing on the details of the law.

6. Flag Real Urgency, But Don’t Cry Wolf

If your email genuinely requires urgent action, say so. If it doesn’t, be clear about that too.

Everyone is juggling competing priorities. When everything is “urgent,” nothing is.
Overusing urgency erodes your credibility and trains people to ignore your red flags.

Be someone whose emails people take seriously because you only pull the urgency card when it truly matters.

7. Include Next Steps or a Clear Note That There Are None

Clearly outline what needs to happen next and who is going to take those steps. If you are outlining a planned path forward but would like recipients to sign off on your proposal, make your request for their input or sign-off explicit.

If the email is just for awareness, make that clear.

8. Include All of the Right People (and No One More) as Recipients

If the email impacts other teams or stakeholders, loop them in. Even if they don’t need to act, copying them for awareness shows foresight and keeps people aligned.

But resist the temptation to over-CC.

Don’t add a colleague’s manager just because they’re slow to respond. That move almost always backfires and you end up looking like a jerk. Plus, there’s usually a more constructive path.

Use your recipient list to build trust, not score points. Copy with intention.

9. Polish When It Matters Most

Not every email needs to be a masterpiece. But when you're writing to senior executives, the board, or external stakeholders—make it your best.

For high-stakes messages, small details signal judgment and credibility. Typos, unclear phrasing, or meandering structure can distract from your point.

Here’s how to tighten things up:

• Read it aloud. You’ll catch awkward phrasing you’d miss on screen.

• Try the sentence-by-sentence, backward trick. It helps spot grammar and flow issues.

• Use a trusted writing tool (like Grammarly or enterprise approved ChatGPT).

• Phone a friend. A quick gut check from a sharp colleague can save you from missteps.

Bottom line: Polished writing builds trust, especially when the stakes are high.

10. Know When Not to Send the Email

Don’t send the email if it:

• Fails the Wall Street Journal test. Dance like no one is watching. Email as though your words will appear on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. If your words could be misperceived, or for any reason would be problematic for your or your employer if made public, don’t send the email.

• You are angry or frustrated. Wait until you’ve had time to cool off, or better yet, pick up the phone to try and sort out the problem before emailing. Email has a tendency to escalate tension, while live conversations naturally de-escalate.

• When tone is everything. Getting tone just right in an email can be challenging, especially if there are multiple different recipients or you don’t know some of them very well. In these cases, sometimes a phone call may be better.

• The timing is not right. If slacks are flying among various subgroups, you may be better off waiting to send a summary email. Similarly, if it’s 9PM, you’re a supervisor or senior executive, and the email can wait until morning, you might consider scheduling the email to go out in the morning.

Your email is one way you show up professionally. Use the above tips to show up at your best.

Every email you send is a small but powerful way you show up professionally. It’s how you frame decisions, build trust, and influence outcomes, often without being in the room.

Adopting strong email habits makes you more polished and more effective.

When your emails are clear, focused, and purposeful:

• You move projects forward faster.

• You make better use of your colleagues’ time.

• And you build a reputation as someone who communicates like a leader.

Great emails signal clarity of thought.
Poor ones signal confusion—or worse, carelessness.

So take the extra moment when it counts.
Your future self—and your reputation—will thank you.