Dear Sirs,
Not the start of any kind of formal letter, don't worry!
But this is how so many written correspondences (letters, emails etc) begin in the legal profession.
It is a salutation that, let's be honest, tends to be written and then forgotten about because it is so ingrained in the teachings when we are studying and training to be lawyers. We write it and then forget about it because its just expected to be there.
But when we stop to think about it, it is then that we're able to realise exactly why this salutation is outdated and doesn't belong in the modern, diverse and inclusive society that we live in and continue to champion.
Answer this - what did you first think when you saw the salutation "Dear Sirs" for the first time?
This could have been at a workplace or in studies or in your own time. Were you surprised? Were you shocked? Or did you not think anything of it?
(no wrong answers here, its just something to think about)
It has been part and parcel of the training we receive as students and aspiring lawyers that "Dear Sirs" is the most appropriate introduction to use when you are writing to other firms, companies, courts, and so on. This is because historically law firms were predominantly owned by men and the profession as a whole was very male-dominated, and traditionally you would be writing to the firm, not an individual, which again would more often than not be owned by a man.
It has only been for the last 100 years that women have been members of the legal profession, our friends and colleagues.
Further, thanks to the tireless efforts of our LGBTQ+ friends and colleagues and allies, visibility of members of the profession who identify as trans, non-binary, genderfluid or anyone other than cisgender has increased to the point where it is impossible to not be aware that some of our colleagues and friends do not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, or as only male or female.
I probably bet that when we were asked to describe a lawyer for the very first time, we probably envisioned a cisgender, heterosexual, middle-class, white man. But we've never started our letters or emails off with "Dear White Person", "Dear Middle-Class person", or "Dear Straight Person", have we?
So I ask myself why we are continuing to use the archaic "Dear Sirs" when it is clear as day that there are firms owned and run by women or others who do not identify as just one gender.
Have you heard this riddle before? I remember hearing it being asked by a reporter on a high street to passers-by.
A man and his son are driving in a car one day, when they get into a fatal accident. The man is killed instantly. The boy is knocked unconscious, but he is still alive. He is rushed to hospital, and will need immediate surgery. The doctor enters the emergency room, looks at the boy, and says...
"I can't operate on this boy, he is my son."
The answer?
The doctor is the boy's mother!
This riddle is asked to explore gender stereotypes we may hold in respect of certain careers, especially 'classic' careers such as law and medicine.
When this question was first asked, some of the answers given have been quite out there! They have ranged from:
the supernatural ("the boy's father rose from the grave"), to
Hollywood ("the police thought the boy's father was dead, but he wasn't and he rushed to the hospital to save his son")
before those guessing the answer even thought that the doctor could have been the boy's mother.
It isn't all negative though, because what if the boy had two fathers? This is a fair point and it is pleasing to see an answer that is reflective of the society that we live in today where children could have two parents of the same sex.
However it still runs the risk of fortifying the idea that gender stereotypes are still present in society, at a time when we are working hard to address this, as this answer still assumes that the doctor is a man.
So what can we do moving forward?
The point in this post is that the profession has become so much more diverse and inclusive over time that it is now commonplace to see women as firm owners, as solicitors and at Board level in firms, which would have been a mere pipe dream 100 years ago! Also, we are much more switched on to seeing our LGBTQ+ friends and colleagues as members of the profession, and as prominent members of other companies.
So surely it is right that our correspondences reflect this!
As I touched on in a previous post (read here), language is a powerful tool and when used to describe and identify who we are, it becomes our most personal and precious gift to ourselves.
Therefore, language used by others to address recipients should take into consideration that men aren't the only ones in positions of high authority.
I believe it is easy enough to do this, and this change requires minimal effort from the person drafting the letters/emails.
In fact, it has already been adopted by some of the biggest law firms in the country and in the world. Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Linklaters have dropped the use of the masculine only greetings and have moved to more gender-neutral language altogether.
So now it is much more common to see letters starting with "Dear Sirs or Madams".
Freshfields has even amended the greetings used in the US to "Dear Ladies and Gentleman".
This is a much more inclusive and appropriate salutation to use, and it is pleasing to see that it has been adopted amongst some of the biggest players in the game!
Though I think this could be amended even further and I would suggest amending to "Dear Sirs/Mesdames/Others", which would be an even more inclusive salutation as it includes our LGBTQ+ friends and colleagues. If a recipient doesn't identify as exclusively male or female, and instead identifies as trans or non-binary etc, then this salutation can include them too.
Also, think of who else might be addressed in such a way that doesn't use a gendered pronoun:
A doctor (of medicine or otherwise)
A member of the clergy (eg Reverend, Rabbi etc)
Someone with a military honorific (eg Captain, Colonel, General etc)
An elected official or public servant (eg President, Prime Minister etc)
One could argue that calling a Doctor "Sir" or "Madam" can diminish the years of study, practice and effort that went into their journey to achieve their Doctorate, and that they are therefore entitled to use the title of Dr in their letters or emails and are entitled to be addressed as "Doctor" by others should they so choose.
So that's problem solved then?
I don't think its quite that simple. Because whilst the above amend to the traditional salutation is good, you'll notice that Sirs still comes first in the sequence.
Again, I think this boils down to the historical position where firms were owned solely by men and so that is still the historically accepted standard.
So is it worth removing genders altogether from salutations? Whether it is an internal or external correspondence, this could invite other salutations such as:
Dear Colleagues,
Dear all,
Dear Friends,
For the attention of [person's name] or [their title],
To whom it may concern,
Hello,
Hi everyone,
Good day/morning/afternoon/evening
Then again, in the technological age we are living in right now, surely there is no excuse for not knowing who you are writing to, or not having some sort of idea who you are writing to.
It is easy now to find the website of the company or firm you are writing to in the course of your work, or the company or firm that you are applying to as a job candidate. Even better if they have a page on their website called "Meet the Team" or similar, because this means you can narrow your search down to either the individual person or the department and customise your salutation accordingly.
Doing this, whether as a job candidate or if you're already working, will show that you're able to do appropriate research into who you are or will be talking to, which is a good skill for anyone!
However, as a foil to the accepted position that emails must have a greeting or a salutation, the content of any letter or email you send won't change at all. You'd include the same information in it regardless of who you were sending it to.
So one might argue that this very minor change to the salutation serves no meaningful point if the purpose of that letter/email is to get information across. You could remove the salutation and not change a single thing in the content of the letter.
This is true. But ditching the salutation and general pleasantries, however sincere they may or may not be (!), doesn't do a firm or its lawyers any favours when they want to position themselves as a combination of good legal advisors, business advisors, and trusted confidants. This latter point is particularly important if the matters are very personal such as what you might see in Family law or when you are undertaking tasks like drafting Lasting Powers of Attorney where you are exploring very difficult personal topics such as mental capacity. You don't want to come across like you don't care, or like an emotionless machine.
By ditching the salutation, the firm and its lawyers would put themselves across as being uncaring, distant and unsociable. In a profession where so much value is placed in the strength of relationships, every correspondence is an opportunity to make a new relationship or build on an existing one.
In the age of the O-shaped lawyer, excellent people skills are equally as important as deep legal knowledge and expertise, and a good grounding in one or more complementary subjects like politics or technology.
In my opinion, it makes sense to continue to use a salutation, however tedious or meaningless it may seem.
But we're arguing over semantics again - is there any point?
Yes, this is an argument over semantics. But its an important point to be made as the end result could have a real positive impact on future relationships you are looking to make.
Looking at it from a Return on Investment (ROI) point of view, you only need minimal effort to make this small change to regular letters or emails to clients, colleagues, counterparts or external partners. In fact, if you utilise technology to your advantage, like automatically generated letters or email signatures, it is made even easier!
Top tip: if letters are automatically generated then the change can be made to the code, and you can edit your email signature in such a way that you start every email with the greeting and leave a gap for the message and then have your sign off at the bottom.
The end result of this amend can be any of the below (not exhaustive):
the recipient feels respected,
the recipient feels noticed,
the recipient feels validated in who they are,
the recipient will appreciate the effort you put into noticing them as who they are,
the recipient will take pleasure and find positive aspects in working with you,
you can start or build on a good relationship with the recipient, which could result in repeat business or custom,
the recipient will think of you for referring people (clients, jobseekers, allies, anyone) over to you
The simple act of a gentle amend to a now outdated part of a letter or email shouldn't get anyone in a twist.
For those to whom it doesn't make a difference, nothing has changed and they haven't lost out at all.
But for others, it can mean the world!
Even if we can't change the entire world, we can play our part in changing someone's world, or how they see the world, for the better.
Knowing that I could do that for someone by just a small action on my part is, quite frankly, a no-brainer!
Be safe and be well! :)
P
Credit: Cover image photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
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