Email fonts Forum

[tlsguy2020]

Does anyone have an opinion on email fonts? Is it weird to use anything other than Calibri? Slow Friday and I received an email from opposing counsel in Garamond Size 13. Sort of blew me away and now I've fallen down a rabbit hole on whether email fonts say anything in any way about the sender.

[Anonymous User]

In my experience across a few different appellate practice settings, a disproportionate amount of smart appellate lawyers change their default sans serif emails fonts to a serif font. I consider myself just as smart an appellate lawyer, but I keep my default sans serif email font as my one little act of rebellion.

[TigerIsBack]

Only material deviation I've seen is a senior partner I used to work for had his default to Times New Roman, and always black font, even in replies (instead of default blue), which I guess could be helpful if you're copying/pasting into docs from emails, or he just liked TNR, idk I never asked.

[Giro423]

Some of the workers in the county government offices in my city are completely out of control and will use decorative fonts, in pink, and with salutations like “warm regards.”

[Antetrust]

This thread is fascinating LOL . Those out-of-control lawyers with their size 13 font and warm regards hahaha

[basketofbread]

One of my law school clinic professors (amazing lawyer who I respect immensely) signed her emails “Truly Yours” which always tickled me.

[Anonymous User]

I know a very experienced appellate lawyer who writes every single email he sends out only after hitting bold. The entire email is written in bold.

[Anonymous User]

In my experience, people who change their fonts to the Century family take themselves very seriously and have a high opinion of themselves, and people who increase their font size to 14+ are generally elderly. (Anonymous because many of my partners do one or both of these things.)

[Anonymous User]

I was opposite a guy who used like 16 or 18 point font. Maybe he had bad vision idk.

[jamestaylorrecordsas]

𝔚𝔥𝔢𝔫 𝔴𝔢 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔨𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔫 𝔐𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔠𝔞, 𝔐𝔢𝔤𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔱𝔥 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔗𝔶𝔭𝔢 𝔒 𝔑𝔢𝔤𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔳𝔢 𝔱𝔞𝔵𝔢𝔰 𝔴𝔢 𝔲𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔒𝔩𝔡 𝔈𝔫𝔤𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔥 𝔦𝔫 𝔟𝔬𝔩𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔪𝔲𝔫𝔦𝔠𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔥 𝔟𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔦𝔯 𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔞𝔤𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱

[parkslope]

I'm surprised by the number of lawyers who don't change their default font from Calibri, a generally ugly and unserious font.

[Anonymous User]

I'm surprised by the number of lawyers who don't change their default font from Calibri, a generally ugly and unserious font.

I have noticed the fancier/stuffier firms (Cravath, etc.) tend to have the plainest fonts and most unadorned email signatures.

IMO there *is* something undeniably classy about the studied indifference of default Calibri or a plain-text signature — it says, “we don’t need splashy graphics to impress or persuade, we stand by the clarity of our writing and the reputation of our firm alone.” In a way, I think the same is true of the simpler websites (e.g. Wachtell) versus the the fussier ones (e.g. Weil).

[jamestaylorrecordsas]

Jobs intuitively knew to expand his creativity muscle when he invested his time into a calligraphy class at Reed. In his 2005 commencement address at Stanford, he spoke about his calligraphy class, saying,

"I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating."

[parkslope]

I'm surprised by the number of lawyers who don't change their default font from Calibri, a generally ugly and unserious font.

I have noticed the fancier/stuffier firms (Cravath, etc.) tend to have the plainest fonts and most unadorned email signatures.

IMO there *is* something undeniably classy about the studied indifference of default Calibri or a plain-text signature — it says, “we don’t need splashy graphics to impress or persuade, we stand by the clarity of our writing and the reputation of our firm alone.” In a way, I think the same is true of the simpler websites (e.g. Wachtell) versus the the fussier ones (e.g. Weil).

Totally. People put a lot of junk into their e-mail signatures (images, social networking links, etc.) that are annoying. But Times New Roman is more conservative (and better-looking) than Calibri.

[Anonymous User]

TNR is the better font for a legal document, calibri is the better font for things you read on your phone like an email. Neither are great fonts. If you want a nice font go for like Georgia. But then you probably look too fancy, so leave that type of thing for website design or business cards.