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Should In-House Lawyers Use Slack?

The workplace messaging service Slack is generating lots of buzz these days, with The New York Times declaring it the “app that may finally sink email.” But should legal departments use the software? Some general counsel say that giving advice over a chat platform isn’t much different than email. But other legal department leaders are approaching Slack cautiously, citing concerns over privacy and a general preference to give legal advice face-to-face.

Slack and other messaging apps, which allow real-time chat among employees throughout the workday, have gained popularity in the workplace in the past few years. Like email, the technology can also archive and search conversations. In addition to Slack, big players in the space include HipChat, Yammer (a Microsoft subsidiary) and Google Hangouts.

Ken Carter, the general counsel of the San Francisco-based web performance and security company CloudFlare Inc., said that for security reasons his team prefers HipChat. Companies that use HipChat can run the application on their own internal servers, which means messages aren’t stored in the cloud. Slack, on the other hand, is cloud-based. A Slack spokeswoman confirmed the company doesn’t license out its software so that companies can use it on their own internal servers.

Carter said services like Slack and HipChat are convenient and useful, but legal departments should stick to using chat messages to coordinate rather than provide legal advice. For example, he said these apps are ideal for messages like, “Hey, I got your email. I’ll respond when I’m out of my meeting this afternoon.”

“HipChat is a great tool for connecting quickly and causally,” he said. “When it comes to legal advice I want to talk things through or draft an email which would not lend itself to miscommunication or misinterpretation down the road.” The aim, he said, is “being human and communicating with the team in a way that they will understand.”

Doug Luftman, general counsel and chief innovation officer for another California tech company, intellectual property and analytics software company Lecorpio LLC, said he doesn’t consider real-time messaging apps to be all that different from email. Like with email, companies should have a document-retention policy in place for chat messages in case of litigation, he said.

Creating a document-retention policy for chats may be a challenge for legal and IT departments, Luftman added. Companies are used to dealing with emails and Word documents, which are easy to compartmentalize, he said. With archived chats, Luftman suggests businesses immediately look into the technology’s retention capability. One major question he suggests asking: “Is there a way for you to eliminate or delete old messages that have reached a certain date or time frame?”

Sterling Miller, senior counsel with Hilgers Graben in Dallas and the former GC of Sabre Corp. and Travelocity, said that in-house lawyers should remember to label attorney-client privileged information as such. “Put some type of notation in the communication,” he said. This goes for both email and private chat messages, so there is no confusion when it comes to deciding what documents need to be produced in litigation.

With the newest chat apps, lawyers should also be mindful of the importance of a professional tone, Miller said. Like with e-mail, avoid making off-the-cuff comments that you might be embarrassed about later. “Emails have become conversational, and [chat apps] are another level down in formality,” he said.

Carter said it will be interesting to see if any guidelines are released regarding emojis, gifs and memes that are used to express an emotion or ideas. At CloudFlare, his team has a tradition of sending out a companywide meme with a picture of a gong to celebrate when a sales rep lands a big deal.

“There’s been a total shift in the way we communicate, because you can now go and create that picture and use a picture as language.” Carter said. “How can you have an attorney-client privileged meme? It will be interesting to see how that plays out.”