What do you think is the acceptable cutoff time for when it’s no longer reasonable to expect an immediate response to email? I’ve been getting only a few hours of sleep for the past few days. Finally had a night where things seemed quiet and I fell asleep at like 8:45 pm! I woke up at around 6 am to a full inbox and I felt kind of stupid for missing 9 pm emails because that is a really early bedtime (but boy do I feel better this morning!).

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Sometimes you need to listen to your body. It's ok to do what you did as long as there's not a high priority thing like a signing or closing the next day.

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Agree with A1. Also recommend communicating with your team, e.g., “things seem pretty quiet and we have nothing urgent so I’m going to take the opportunity to rest up. Will check emails first thing in morning. If anything urgent comes up, please call me.”

For me, I ended up having a mental breakdown at a trial because I didn’t take advice to get some sleep (from the senior partner no less, although the junior partners kept giving me work). Wish I had said something like the example above.

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Had a partner that I had no active deals with call me at 2AM on a Friday night. Obviously I didn’t answer, I was sleeping. But my phone is in my bedroom, so I thought I heard it (but again, it was 2AM). Woke up to an email at 2:15AM letting me know I was on a new deal and if I could send some comps ASAP. Pretty unacceptable.

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That's pretty crazy.

5 p.m.

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9 is the unofficial, official cutoff. Once 9 hits, you can ignore emails and answer them in the morning assuming a senior didn’t tell you to wait for an email that day. So if it’s a regular email and as soon as it hits 9, turn off the phone and chill. The assumption is you’re asleep.

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I don’t think there is ever a good cutoff because some people expect a response but I generally don’t respond as quickly to things after 7 - you definitely have to listen to your body as A1 said and you also have to have some semblance of boundaries (still figuring this out myself)

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I was just having the same conversation with myself...I finished a research project at around 10 pm and fell asleep by 11 pm when the partner tried to call me to ask me more questions. And then felt stupid for falling asleep...

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I agree

Agree that setting boundaries and communicating are important. 8:30 is my normal bedtime and I'm lucky that most of my team knows this and respects it. They also know that I'll start returning e-mails at 4:30 am, so it's worked out so far. If there's something big happening and I know I'll need to be checking in later, it's generally discussed beforehand. I'm also fairly lucky that I work in patent prosecution, so emergencies are generally rare.

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It is a partner specific. You and society do not set the rules, the partners do, so if you work for one that demands immediate responsiveness at 10 pm, you respond at 10:05 pm. Either that or find a new source of work (within the firm or at a new firm).

In the normal world, the answer is like 430 pm though.

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Court deadlines and client requirements dictate when responses are required. If nothing is due (as in required by a court deadline) imminently and I’m working with a numbnuts who is expecting responses at 10:30 pm, I’ll quickly be working with someone else. Life is far too short to work with people like that because they are “important.”

Assuming we’re not filing something today I wouldn’t expect a response to anything I send after 6 pm. Before that I still wouldn’t expect immediate responses to email. I’ve said numerous times that nothing time sensitive should ever be sent by email.

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I usually am up to at least midnight, so if I get a late email, I usually respond with "will do" and assume tomorrow if fine unless they specifically say they need it that night. But I imagine most people go t to bed at like 10 or 11 so I think you're safe after that

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Depends what’s going on. If everyone on the team is working and there are emails bouncing back and forth, I don’t go to bed till whatever we’re working on is done. If I haven’t heard from anyone for several hours and we aren’t up against a deadline then I don’t feel like they expect an immediate response after 10 or so

^ this, but I would say no “immediate response” after 7 and no “same day response” after 9

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