Clinic Resource Office

April 2001

This is a guide to using internet email for case conferencing across the clinic system. Many caseworkers have expressed the need for timely access to informal advice on practical issues in day-to-day casework. To help meet this need, the CRO has established a series of electronic mailing lists in various areas of interest to clinic caseworkers. This guide will tell you how to subscribe to and use this feature.

An electronic mailing list is a way for people to automatically send group email messages to other people interested in a particular topic. Once a discussion group is established, you can "subscribe" to that group by email. Once subscribed, you can send emails to the mailing list and they will be sent automatically to everyone else who has subscribed to the list. All messages sent using the mailing list are archived to an internet site, where you can read old questions and answers.

When you have made your choices, click the "submit" button at the bottom of the page. You will see a message onscreen telling you that your request has been processed. You should receive an email confirmation of your choices within a few minutes. If not, you may have made a mistake (perhaps a typo in your email address) and you should try subscribing again before you contact the webmaster.

Note that:

• You may only subscribe with an LAO email address. (This is a security feature. For now at least, no one except clinic and CRO staff will be allowed to join the lists.)
• You may subscribe to as many lists as you want. However, the more lists you belong to, the more email you will get.
• You may choose to get emails as they are sent, or you may choose to have all emails from your list sent to you once a day in a single mailing "digest". (You can change this choice as you get experience with the lists.)

You must be a subscriber in order to send or receive messages from a list. If you try to send a message to a list to which you do not belong, you will not get any response. We will try to advise you if we discover that you have done this, but cannot guarantee that this will happen.

There are two ways to send a message to the list:

You have two choices when replying to a message. You may either reply to the list (in which case your reply will go to all subscribers) or you may reply only to the individual who sent the message. (For guidelines on which option to choose in a particular case, see below).

Please note that if you simply click on the "reply" button when you are responding to a message, the reply will go to the entire list. If you only want to respond to the individual sender, you must compose an email to that person in the usual way.

Be cautious about sending document attachments in a list posting!! Do not send attachments, especially large ones, unless you are sure that all recipients will be interested. It will often be better to (1) announce the document and let interested people ask for it, or (2) send it to the CRO for general posting if it is likely to be of general interest (especially as not all clinic staff who work in an area will necessarily be subscribers to your list).

If you do have occasion to send attachments, please note that the maximum size attachment that the program will handle is 500KB. This is quite large (e.g., this document is approximately 60KB) but it is not an infinite limit. (Note: To see how large a WORD document is, click on "File", then "Properties". Under the "General" Tab you will find the size of the document .

• You can view the history of all messages chronologically. This is called the "Date Index". It lists messages by the contents of the "Subject" line in reverse chronological order . This is the easiest way to find a single message if you know roughly when it was sent.
• You can view the history of all messages by topic. This is called the "Thread Index". This page groups related messages together. For example, if someone has posted a query, it will show the initial message by subject matter and all replies to that message (and replies to those replies, and so on). Threads are listed in reverse chronological order.
• You can search the archive from any archive page. The search program will search all text in a message. This will be useful if you cannot remember the date or author of a message but can remember words or phrases that might identify the subject.

When you click on a link on the Archives page, it will take you to the Date Index page. To switch between Date Index and Thread Index, click on the link immediately below the page title.

In other words, "net etiquette". The internet gives us the ability to communicate with and get help from people across the entire province (almost) instantly. However, too much irrelevant communication can drive us all to distraction. The following are some simple guidelines to try to keep the lists as efficient as possible.

The lists are to allow people to

• Get advice on how to deal with unusual fact situations or tricky strategic questions (i.e., case conferencing)
• Share information quickly with other caseworkers in this area of law
• Collect information on trends and problems for community organizing or law reform activities.

The list should not be used:

• To carry on extended discussions with individuals. Use private emails or the phone for this.
• For philosophical treatises(!).
• To make legal research requests.

If you need specific legal information or advice, you should make a research request to the Clinic Resource Office. CRO staff lawyers may subscribe to this list, as time and their interests allow, and may participate in discussions, but the CRO cannot undertake to monitor all clinic discussion groups or to respond to all questions posted.

Stay on topic! These are intended to be focussed discussion groups. If you are asking a question or posting information which is not self-evidently on the topic of list, include a brief explanation why.

Use the "subject" line. Include a descriptive "subject line" in all messages. This is particularly important for the archives.

Be brief! Keep your postings short and to the point. Think about what information others really need before you send it. Your message should contain the information needed to respond intelligently, but if it is too long or rambles too much, others may not bother reading it.

Be precise. Make your questions as precise as possible. This will make it much easier for people to reply. If your problem is complicated and you can't summarize it easily, post a short request outlining the general problem and ask people to contact you.

You have the option of replying to the whole list or to the individual sender. Think before you respond. Reply to the whole list if your answer may be useful for several people. Otherwise, send a private email to the person who posted the question.

If you are replying to the list, and your email program automatically quotes the original message, you should delete the quoted part, or at least delete irrelevant parts of the message. This just makes it more difficult to follow a "thread". Don't forget that the entire "thread" will be available in the archive, so quoting the original message is not generally necessary. If you do leave the quote, put your comments at the top of the message where it can be seen immediately, not at the bottom where readers have to hunt for it.

If you are going to be on leave or on vacation, you may want to unsubscribe from some or all of your lists (to avoid coming back to an unmanageable collection of emails. You can always check on what's happened in your absence by going to the archives.

As with any other form of communication, you are responsible for the content of any messages you send to a list.

• Beware of solicitor client privilege. As in any other situation, you can't reveal privileged information without permission. Do not post client names or identifying information!
• You are responsible for any actions taken as a result as information or advice taken from the list and must still exercise professional judgement to the best of your ability.
• The CRO is not responsible for any information posted on the lists by other users. The fact that information is posted to a list does not imply CRO endorsement of the accuracy of the information.
• Although access to the list is restricted, messages posted to the list are still "public". We cannot guarantee the absolute confidentiality of postings, because we cannot control what subscribers do with messages once they get them.