> I'm not the least bit surprised that a bunch of my peers are claiming that they can charge to merely view emails. Many attorneys -- especially bad ones -- are

> I'm not the least bit surprised that a bunch of my peers are claiming that they can charge to merely view emails. Many attorneys -- especially bad ones -- are particularly defensive of the practice. Having received many email tomes from clients, I wouldn't think twice to charge for reading their email. I would typically respond, but not necessarily if they weren't asking a question, or if we were going to be meeting soon to discuss. I don't know any attorneys (note: all the attorneys I know are corporate attorneys, so may be less bill-sensitive) who would not bill for time spent reading emails. Lawyers spend tons of time reading emails! > FWIW I've had little trouble getting my attorneys to credit me for activities I didn't ask them to do. This makes sense, but is somewhat orthogonal to the email question. If a client sends his lawyer a long email, he is implicitly asking the lawyer to spend the time reading the email.