Legal Commentary

Do interactions with students outside of the classroom gives us additional "teaching moments" beyond the doctrinal lessons of our courses?

As a teacher, I am struck by some of the ways in which students treat our interactions.  Student emails are often very informal, even given the relaxed norms of electronic communication.  For example, I frequently receive emails written without any capital letters, or that address me as "hey!"  Another tendency I've noticed is for students to send multiple emails with questions, seemingly as the questions pop into their heads -- and then retracting one or more of the questions, rather than working through the material and drafting one email that contains a few key questions.  Towards exam time, I've received emails that appear to be large portions of an outline pasted into an email, followed by the question "is this right?"

I struggle with how to deal with such emails.  I'd like my students to know that emails occupy a delicate place in the communications hierarchy:  while they do not need to be formal memoranda, they also should not be treated like a text message.

I worry about what would happen if students sent a message to a law firm partner or senior associate that read, "hey! just wondering if u could explain rule 15 stuff to me again."  On the other hand, interacting with students is one my favorite parts of teaching, and I hate to seem unavailable or unwilling to answer student questions.

Am I too curmudgeonly? I hate to click my tongue and mutter about how I treated my professors "back in my day," especially since I am a 2001 graduate of college and 2004 law school graduate!  But, perhaps we do our students a disservice by failing to direct their attention toward improper workplace etiquette.