Ensure students, faculty, staff, and other members of our community are informed about events and important information—without cluttering their inboxes. Find the right tool to communicate your message and follow best practices when creating emails.
Email Alternatives
Before sending a mass email, please consider these alternative channels that may better align with your communication goals and audience and help reduce overall email volume, especially for students.
Events Calendar: LawCal is your primary method for promoting an event to the Columbia Law School community. Once an event is on the calendar, the Communications Office will automatically amplify your event on the lobby monitors and in the daily/weekly event e-blasts that the entire community receives. To include your event on the lobby monitors, it should be posted on LawCal no later than Tuesday the week before the event. Learn how to submit events.
The Gavel: This weekly newsletter from Student Affairs provides all students with updates on events, resources, and initiatives from Student Affairs and other areas of the Law School. To feature your news or events and for more information, email [email protected]. Submissions are due each Wednesday at 5 p.m.
Faculty Events Digest: This list is distributed to faculty every Friday and managed by Associate Director of Faculty Affairs Madison Winston.
Faculty in the Media: The Communications Office regularly updates the In the Media webpage with news featuring faculty and publishes the Columbia Law Digest, a biweekly newsletter on LinkedIn that rounds up faculty news. Reach out to [email protected] with questions.
Email Best Practices Checklist
If you decide that the above channels won’t meet your needs and that an email is the right method to communicate with a large group of recipients, make sure you’ve taken these essential steps:
- Determine your audience and whether to use a CLS listserv to reach our internal community. See “Email Tools and Columbia Law Listservs” below.
- Ensure the purpose of your email is clear in your messaging and subject line.
- Incorporate calls to action, and call out essential information, such as contact information, in case recipients have questions, while keeping your message concise.
- Decide whether your message requires any visual elements (for example, a department header) and if it needs to be sent or designed through a platform like Mailchimp.
- Use BCC for your recipients. Check that the “from” address is correct.
- Avoid sending the email during non-working hours or when other communications are going to the same audience.
- Proofread and test your email before sending it to your audience. This includes double-checking links, dates, locations, proper nouns, and other factual information.
Email Platforms: Columbia Law offers access to a variety of resources for designing and sending mass emails.
- Mailchimp: Create and manage email lists; create, edit, and send templated emails; and view email analytics. Learn about getting access to Mailchimp accounts for departmental use.
- Google Layouts
- Headers and other design resources: Email [email protected] to request an email header, and explore our visual style and web guides.
Columbia-managed listservs allow for broadcast messages to specific segments of the Law School community (e.g., staff, faculty, and students). To access listserv addresses and learn about moderation and approval processes, please contact [email protected].
Consolidate information when possible: Combining related topics into one email minimizes the overall number of messages your audience receives.
Activate your subject line: Using specific, action-oriented subject lines (e.g., “Action Required”or “Deadline Approaching”) allows your audience to quickly gauge the purpose and urgency of an email.
Include clear instructions: A call to action (e.g., “Response Needed by [date]”) ensures your audience knows exactly what to do, reducing follow-up questions.
Keep messages concise: Short emails that make it simple to find important information are easier to read and process.
Provide self-service options: Links to FAQs, portals, etc. enable your recipients to find information independently, reducing email inquiries.
BCC for mass communications: Using BCC protects privacy and avoids reply-all threads, improving both security and inbox organization.
Be mindful of timing: Send emails at considerate times (e.g., during working hours) and, when possible, coordinate with others to ensure multiple emails are not being sent to the same audiences.
Review before sending: Proofreading minimizes the need for corrections and follow-ups. Make sure to check “from” and “to” addresses, subject line, links, dates, locations, footers, proper nouns, and other factual information.