Be Careful in Formatting the Date This Year
Don’t Give People an Opportunity
Most of us have gotten used to formatting the date is the MM/DD/YY format, and most of the time, that’s fine. This year, however, that just won’t do. Think about it, you HAVE to write any 2020 date as MM/DD/YYYY.
1/15/20 can quickly and easily be rewritten or added onto as 1/15/2017 if someone were to choose to do so. Even if you’re creating a PDF a Word Doc, or any other type of typed copy needs to have the full date in order to avoid someone coming adding onto it with their printer.
How horrible would it be if someone on the other side of one of your cases decided they wanted to make a quick, and illegal, buck off you or your client by falsifying the date on one of your messages.
Bad Clients Are Great Clients
It’s unfortunate but true that bad clients are out there. Every law firm I’ve ever worked with has at least one story of a client they regretted taking. And while they’re out there and you will have them, I think they’re great.
It was a bad client that lead to the necessity of this post. Already this year someone has tried this trick with an attorney they’re working with on their issue. Fortunately for that lawyer, they saw what happened and put it out there for you and me to learn from.
That’s what makes bad clients great. They teach us. They show us the things we’re missing by taking advantage. They point our our oversights by trying to take advantage of them. Most importantly, they teach us about the kind of people we want to work with and those we don’t. It’s the bad clients that prepare us for the good ones.
Formatting the Date in 2020
To make it a little easier for you to communicate this information out to your team, just copy and paste the following into an email, your employee handbook, and your policies and procedures manual.
To All:
Going forward all dates must be written in the full date format of MM/DD/YYYY. So the date of March 15 would be formatted as 03/15/2020. This will ensure there is no confusion with any past dated material that wasn’t dated properly. This will also protect you and our firm from any unscrupulous manipulation of any documents produced for the firm, our clients, and the courts. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
[Your Name]
