E-mail
E-mail is fast, efficient and cheap. It is also very dangerous.

Wrong address
There are times, especially when you are tired, you send your message to the wrong recipient. That can be embarrassing.

Group e-mail
You may inadvertently hit the "Send All" button so an e-mail that was meant to be sent to one individual was sent to everyone on your e-mail list.

Forwarding
You can never tell who your e-mails have been forwarded to. One of the directors may be playing dirty politics and secretly forwarding your messages to his followers.

Sent in anger
E-mail is fast, too fast. An e-mail may get you angry and you reply too quickly. The message cannot be retrieved.

Long life
E-mails last forever. You can be publicly embarrassed by an e-mail you sent years earlier.

Here is an article on why directors should not use e-mail for board business.

Risky business: discussing association matters
in e-mails
Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit Blog
Posted by Diane Silverberg
06 October 2016

“Dance like no one is watching; e-mail like it may one day be read aloud in a deposition.”
—author unknown

As well-known especially by those with teenagers, e-mail has taken the place of ordinary telephone conversations and in-person communications. Unlike most telephone conversations and in-person communications, however, e-mail communications are not ephemera. Rather, they live on in back-up tapes or disks maintained by your employer, in records maintained by your e-mail service provider, on your computer’s hard drive, and/or in your phones—smart and otherwise. Also unlike verbal communications, e-mail typically fails to convey tone, sarcasm and other nuances that can altogether change the meaning of the intended communication—and can create problems in litigation accordingly.

Board members should restrict their Association-related communications to verbal exchanges

For some time—and increasingly—attorneys look to e-mail for the juicy tidbits that the often sparse and sterile Board-meeting minutes or other business records of your Association do not convey. To avoid losing the right to rely on your Declaration’s exculpation provision, or creating circumstances that could give rise to an award of punitive damages that insurance policies typically do not indemnify over, Board members should restrict their Association-related communications to verbal exchanges. Where appropriate—specifically, when evaluating matters involving litigation, the hiring or firing of employees, rule violations and a unit-owner’s unpaid assessments—such conversations should take place in closed, executive session of your Board of Directors. When addressing other Board business, confine your communications to official and open Board meetings.

If Board members must nonetheless e-mail for any Association-related reason, it is important that they avoid sending e-mail communications to the Association attorney from their work e-mail address. Often, employee handbooks underscore that the employee enjoys no expectation of privacy. Such a provision could undermine application of the attorney-client privilege, as courts have found in New York (although not yet in Illinois). Equally dangerous, an opposing party could subpoena your employer to mine for potentially damaging e-mail, perhaps necessitating the review of backup tapes at tremendous and unnecessary cost to your employer. To avoid such risks, consider creating e-mail accounts solely for Association or Board-related communications, and/or otherwise segregate all e-mail related to your Association into a folder created expressly for that purpose.

Remember, too, that—if you are communicating Association business via e-mail, even if only an agenda or notice—the e-mail may constitute a business record of the Association. Thus, it is important to preserve such records both to retain corporate knowledge for the benefit of future boards of directors, as well to safeguard important information in the event of future litigation.

Could your personal e-mails be exposed?
HindmanSanchez P.C
By: Maris Davies
25 January 2017

Imagine the worst case scenario: you are on the board, the board is embroiled in litigation, and the opposing side wants to know what was said in an email. Suddenly you may find yourself facing the possibility of a third party rooting through your private email in search of information relative to the pending lawsuit.

Clearly, this is not a position in which you want to be.  Even worse, imagine you have been using your work email for association business.

This now opens up your work server to poking and prodding by opposing counsel. Not only could this land you in hot water with your boss, it could risk the exposure of your company’s confidential information.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution! As soon as you are elected to the Board you should create a new, individual email account solely for association business. Some examples are:

– YourNameVP@yahoo.com
– YourName-PresidentAssociation@gmail.com
– YourName.Association@msn.com

This email address should be used to conduct all association business and nothing else. None of your personal or work email addresses should be used, in any way, for association business. That way, if the worst case scenario comes true, your private and confidential work and personal information is secure.


top   contents   chapter   previous   next