Email and Confidential Information

LegalServer allows you to send emails from within the application. Most 'notes' fields allows this, for example when opening and closing cases, entering time, etc. These emails can contain confidential information, so the usual care regarding content and the recipients of emails needs to be taken.

Sending a case note or other information from within LegalServer by email does not provide anyone outside your organization access to your site. Recipients will of course see the content of the message and any attachments you send. Depending on the note being emailed and the site configuration, the email body may automatically contain the client's name.

The same concerns about sending email from your agency email account apply to email sent from within LegalServer. Email is generally not encrypted and anyone receiving the email will be able to read it. Email sent to an invalid address will 'bounce back' with an undeliverable notice. But a mistyped address like jjoanes@example.com might be a valid email address that will be delivered to John Joanes instead of the intended John Jones. Consumer email addresses like rsmith@comcast.net are routinely recycled as one R Smith closes a Comcast account and a different R Smith opens an account.

It is also possible for email service providers to read the contents of unencrypted email, and even have backup copies stored. Whether this possibility alone presents a problem depends on organization policy and the ethics rules applicable to your organization.

Related: Email - Limiting Recipients Box Search Results