An honest attorney will tell you that attorneys aren't always perfect when it comes to email etiquette. We certainly can't be the worst; attorneys who write emails along the lines of "ur client is SOOOO stupid LOL! #YOLO!" probably don't have much repeat business. There are many forms of email abuse. There is the "Thanks for Sharing" species of email abuse, in which a mundane communication that really only needs to be between two people includes everyone in the lower 48 states in the CC line. This is the electronic equivalent of asking the person next to you whether their infection is responding to antibiotics in a loud voice during the quiet moment right before the symphony starts to play. There is the "Kamakazi Snarkbomb" species of email abuse, in which a person responds quickly and snarkily to an email without reading the entire email to which they are responding, which hurts them but really leaves everyone poorer.
And then there is the A(nnoying)CC, which the folks at National Public Radio's "All Tech Considered" have quite deftly taxonimized. An A(nnoying)CC occurs when a Person A and Person B are having a conversation over email, and Person A copies Person C to tear down Person B's argument. The fallout from an A(nnoying)CC is generally going to be that Person C is uncomfortable with being brought in mid-conversation as an unwilling member of Person A's gang, Person B is going to like Person A just a little bit less than they did before, and Person A is going to have to live with themselves. Everyone loses.
The best way to deal with the A(nnoying)CC is probably to ignore it - let nature take its course. Person C isn't impressed, and is usually Person A's boss. If the offense is particularly egregious (this is of course assuming you are Person B), take a deep breath, calm yourself, pick up the phone and call Person A. Telephone calls can resolve issues that email cannot, and usually cuts out the possibility of a follow-up A(nnoying)CC. Those are positive, constructive ways to deal with an A(nnoying)CC. But for fun, here's a negative, passive-aggressive and ill-advised way to deal with A(nnoying)CC: reply to the email copying one of the following [obviously fake] email addresses:
- chuck@chucknorris.net
- lordvader@compuserve.com
- POTUS@whitehouse.gov
- Clark.Kent@dailyplanet.com
- o@oprah.com
- jpeschi1@goodfellas.org
- vladimirputin53@hotmail.com
- hewhocannotbenamed@voldemort.edu
- Optimus.Prime@autobots.com
- j.bond@mi6.uk.co
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