It’s not usually a great idea to use your personal email account for business purposes. Sometimes you’re stuck — you can’t get access to your work account, or that account is down, or has limitations that your personal account doesn’t. But besides the “branding” and professionalism downside to sending a client a draft for review from “QTpi72@footsie.com,” there is a risk you may not have thought of at all: As explained in a New York Law Journal column by two partners at Paul Weiss (registration required), if litigation embroils your business, intermingling business and pleasure in your personal account can open that account up to disclosure under the rules governing civil discovery.
That doesn’t sound like a great idea.
