Write Legal Updates Your Colleagues Will Actually Read

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Deep Dive

To be effective, your emails have to get read

I once spent an hour crafting a legal update on an important issue for several executives, only to have most never respond, and one person call me to ask what the email said because he “didn’t have time to read it,” but got the sense it was important.

The email had clear language, solid structure, and anticipated every question. But it clearly wasn’t effective.

If you’ve been in-house for more than five minutes, you’ve probably been there too. And if you and your team are trying to act as strategic partners rather than just reactive service providers, you know how frustrating and high-stakes this problem can be.

When your updates go unread, your work goes unnoticed. Your priorities get deprioritized. And when those priorities were meant to drive business goals, those goals suffer too.

You also miss the chance to steer the business in the right direction.

The good news is that it’s not a you problem. People aren’t ignoring your emails because they don’t like you or think you’re not smart (we’ve all had that thought… it’s just your inner critic and it’s wrong). It’s a format problem. A language problem. A framing problem.

And all of that is fixable.

Today, we’re talking about how to write legal updates that get read, shared, and acted on—so you can lead more effectively, advocate for your team’s work, and shape the decisions that actually matter.

Let’s get into it.

Step One: Know Your Audience

Most legal updates fail because they’re written as if the audience is other lawyers.

But your readers, especially executives, aren’t lawyers. They don’t care about the latest enforcement trends or how cleverly you structured a clause. And most of the time, they probably don’t care about every detail. They want clarity on the key points. Fast.

They want to know:

• Does this impact me or my team?

• Do I need to do anything?

• What’s at risk if we don’t act?

If your update doesn’t answer those questions up top and in language they understand, it’s probably getting skimmed or skipped entirely.

A few tactical shifts can make all the difference:

• Label your updates. Use simple, bolded headers like:

  • “Action Required”

  • “Needs Input”

  • “For Awareness Only”

  This tells your reader what to do before they even read the content.

• Lead with the takeaway. Don’t bury the point in a legal explanation. Start with the most important sentence. For example, “We need to update our vendor contract language by Q3 to stay compliant with [X], or risk [Y].”

• Mirror their language. If your execs talk about “revenue risk,” use that phrasing. If they care about timelines, highlight the deadline. Legal nuance can come later, if they need it.

The goal is to align your communication with how your audience thinks and decides.

Because if you want to inform and influence the business, your updates need to sound like they’re part of the business conversation.

Step Two: Prioritize

One of the fastest ways to lose your reader’s attention is to treat everything as equally important.

When you flag ten “critical” issues in a single update, you overwhelm your audience and undermine your credibility. Executives don’t have time to sift through every legal nuance to figure out what matters most. That’s your job.

So do the hard thinking for them.

Ask yourself:

• What truly needs their attention now?

• What can wait?

• What’s just for context?

When you group your updates by urgency, you help your reader focus and build trust that you’re not crying wolf.

Try labeling sections of your email, or even the subject line itself, to show what kind of attention each item requires. For example:

• Immediate action required: Time-sensitive, business-impacting issues that need a decision, approval, or input now.

• On the horizon: Emerging issues or upcoming deadlines. No action needed yet, but they should be on your radar.

• For awareness: Updates that don’t require input, but help keep everyone informed and aligned.

This kind of structure signals that you’ve prioritized thoughtfully and makes it far more likely your audience will engage with the parts that matter most.

Because when you make their job easier, you make your own impact clearer.

Step Three: Structure for Skimming

Even if your email is important, most executives will read it like they read everything else: while walking between meetings, glancing at their phone, or skimming over lunch.

So if your message is buried in long paragraphs or dense language, it’s already lost.

Your job is to make it as easy as possible for your readers to absorb the key points, even with half their brain elsewhere.

Here’s how:

• Lead with purpose. Start your email with one or two sentences that explain why you’re writing and what you need from them.

• Use headers or bold text. Visually break up the content so they can quickly scan for what matters.

• Keep paragraphs short. Two to three lines max. Large blocks of text are where attention spans go to die.

• Use bullet points for detail. If you have multiple items to flag, list them out. This helps with readability and makes it easier to reference later.

• Be concise. Cut filler. Every word competes for limited attention; make sure each one earns its spot.

If you’re not sure whether your update is skimmable, try reading it on your phone. If you feel overwhelmed or lost, so will your reader.

Good formatting may feel cosmetic, but it can actually be strategic. Sometimes, it’s the difference between being seen… and being ignored.

Step Four: Speak Their Language

Most executives don’t care about statutory interpretations or regulatory frameworks. They care about business outcomes: risk, revenue, timelines, and impact.

So if your update reads like a CLE outline, you’re losing them.

Instead, frame your insights in terms they already use. You still have to do the legal analysis, but then you need to translate it into what matters to them.

Here’s how:

• Start with business impact. Instead of “The FTC issued new guidance,” try “We may need to change our marketing claims to stay compliant with new FTC guidance.”

• Use familiar terms. If your leadership team talks about “customer trust” or “sales pipeline,” use those phrases to frame risk or opportunity.

• Highlight tradeoffs. Executives often have to balance speed, cost, and risk. Don’t just point out the risk—help them understand the options and their implications.

• Save the detail for follow-up. You can always walk through the full legal rationale if someone asks. But most people won’t, and that’s okay.

By translating into business language and skipping the legal details at first, you elevate your influence by meeting your audience where they are.

Because if they can’t understand what you’re saying, they definitely won’t act on it.

Step Five: End With Next Steps

A clear ending is just as important as a clear opening.

Once your audience reads your update—skims it, more likely—they should know exactly what to do next… or that nothing is required.

If you’re vague or leave things hanging, two things happen: people don’t act, and you waste time following up.

Avoid that by making the next steps explicit. Every legal update should end with clarity on what’s required (even if you also made it clear at the start of the note). It can be short and to the point, like “No action needed. Just keeping you in the loop,” or “Let me know if you have concerns by Friday—otherwise we’ll move forward.”

Even a simple, “I’ll circle back next week once I hear from [X],” shows ownership and closes the loop.

When you clearly signal what’s next—whether it’s action, approval, or nothing at all—you help your stakeholders make decisions faster, and you establish yourself as someone who runs a tight, efficient process.

And that’s someone whose emails they’ll want to keep reading.

This is how legal gets heard

Writing legal updates that actually get read is about clarity, structure, and empathy for your reader. It isn’t about clever phrasing or perfect grammar, despite what you might have learned in law school or a law firm.

When you take the time to understand what your audience needs, focus on what actually matters, format your message for fast consumption, frame legal issues in business terms, and close with clear next steps, everything shifts.

You get more responses, which is important to getting your job done. You also build trust and speed up decision-making. And by doing all that, you help the business move forward.

Try it this week. Pick one upcoming update and rework it using these five steps. If it lands differently, I’d love to hear how it goes—just hit reply and let me know.