E-Mail Disclaimers Proliferate, but Some Wonder About Words; Confidential Lunch Order

Email disclaimers, those wordy notices at the end of emails from lawyers, bankers, analysts, consultants, publicists, tax advisers and even government employees, have become ubiquitous—so much so that many recipients, and even senders, are questioning their purpose.

Emails are becoming bogged down with unwanted information. They often now include automatic digital signatures with a sender's contact information or witty sayings, pleas to save trees and not print them, fancy logos and apologies for grammatical errors spawned by using a touch screen. Some lawyers say the disclaimers have value, alerting someone who receives confidential, proprietary, or legally privileged information by accident that they don't have permission to take advantage of it. Others, including lawyers whose email messages are laden with them, say the disclaimers are for the most part unenforceable. They argue that they don't create any kind of a contract between sender and recipient merely because they land in the recipient's inbox.