Clinical Email System Policy

Access and Use of Clinical Email Accounts

All J.D. and LL.M. students will have two HLS email accounts, the regular student account (jharvard@jd##.law.harvard.edu) and the clinical account (jharvard.jd##@hlsclinics.org). Both accounts reflect the last two digits of the year of graduation. Clinical visiting students and/or volunteers will be assigned a clinical account if or when they begin doing clinical work.

The clinical email account must be used exclusively for work related to an HLS clinic and/or Student Practice Organization (SPO). Students working at externship and/or pro bono organizations for HLS clinical or pro bono credit must adhere to the email policies of their placement organizations. Many external organizations provide students with an email address to use for their work during the placement. If the placement does not provide this, students should discuss the existence of their HLS clinical account with the supervisor and should use this account. Students should not use their regular HLS or personal email accounts for externship or pro bono work.

The clinical email account has extra security measures in place to protect the confidentiality and integrity of privileged client communication and case information. These measures protect the student, the supervisor, and the clients from inadvertent disclosure of confidential information. This email account should never be used for personal or other matters unrelated to clinical work.

For more specifics on how to use the email system, see the HLS ITS website.

Managing Email Content

The clinical email account is set up in a manner designed to make the forwarding of client information extremely difficult in order to protect confidential information. Students will be trained by their individual clinics and SPOs on how to deal with their email, how to upload information into the case management system, and where to file client/case related information before they leave a clinic or SPO at the end of each semester.

Students should never send High Risk Confidential Information through any kind of email account. Instead, they should use the Secure File Transfer System.

Students should also consider whether sensitive document data, also known as metadata, should be removed from documents before sending any attachments from their clinical email account. Students should always discuss this and any other issue with their supervisor if they are unsure about an appropriate course of action.

After Graduation

Once students have completed their time at the law school, and after HLS provides adequate notice, their clinical account will be terminated without access to send, receive, or auto-reply to email. In the rare event a student does not properly file this information before leaving a placement, the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs will have sole access to their archived clinical emails.

See more on account access after graduation.