If I hear my BB go off at 2:00 in the morning, I reply immediately if it’s a work thing. For me, an order to check my email hourly would be permission to slack off.
After doing a great job on a rush project, a relatively new associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges made a mistake. He didn't check his e-mail.
As a result, he missed a senior partner's instruction that he should send out a draft document for client review before calling it a day. Partner A. William Urquhart notes the mistake in an e-mail he sent the next morning to firm attorneys, which is reprinted in Above the Law, and exhorts the troops to pick up the pace as far as electronic message review is concerned.
Lawyers should be checking their e-mail hourly, unless they have a very good excuse for not doing so, Urquhart says, such as being in court, in a tunnel or asleep.
Source: Check E-Mail Hourly, Quinn Partner Says, Unless in Court, in Tunnel or Asleep | ABA Journal - Law News Now