Attorney · email deliverability consultant

Mickey Chandler

I help senders stay in the inbox—and stay out of court while they do it. My practice sits at the intersection of email deliverability and the law that governs it.

Read the writing
Section 01

Who I am.

I’m a Texas attorney and email deliverability consultant with about twenty years in the industry. I’ve spent most of that time helping organizations figure out why their email isn’t working, enforcing policy, and occasionally explaining why what they’re doing is also illegal.

I run two practices: Whizardries, where I handle deliverability and privacy consulting, and Lex Protego, where I do the legal work. I believe email works best when it’s built on consent.

When I’m not doing this, I’m reading military sci-fi and (usually) rooting for the humans.
Section 02 · Engagements

How I work with clients.

Three shapes. Most engagements start as one and grow into another.

Twenty years in deliverability and abuse. Eleven of those as Director of Messaging Experience Abuse & Compliance at Salesforce Marketing Cloud, two as Senior Engineering Manager at Proofpoint. CIPP/US and CIPM. Co-Chair, M³AAWG Abuse Desk Committee, 2019–2024.

Deliverability

Clarity

Authentication, infrastructure, consent paths, and sender reputation. Ends in a written report with a prioritized remediation plan. Typically three to four weeks.

3–4 weeks
Abuse Desk

Bastion

Setting up an abuse desk from complaint handling through termination. 12+ weeks. Includes written program documentation.

6–10 weeks
Retainer

Counsel

Retained advisory on CAN-SPAM, CASL, GDPR, CCPA, and TCPA along with help on the specific operational decisions where the law and the deliverability stack interact.

Monthly retainer
What a deliverability review looks like

I read DMARC reports the way I read pleadings.

Slowly, twice, and with a highlighter. The summary on the right is the shape every engagement starts with—a one-page read of where the program stands today.

aggregate@dmarc-reports.example.com24h window
sender domainnotifications.acme.co
policyp=quarantine · pct=100
spf alignment98.4%
dkim alignment94.1%
forwarded off-domain1.2%
first reportedApr 12, 2025 · 04:21 UTC
Section 03 · Writing

Notes from the practice.

Deliverability and compliance, long-form. Published at Spamtacular since 2009.

All writing at Spamtacular.com →
May 2026
Your US email compliance assumptions are wrong outside the US.
CAN-SPAM is not the floor. What American senders get wrong when they mail into Canada, the EU, and the UK.
7 min
May 2026
Authenticating email evidence gets harder to contest.
Courts are getting more sophisticated about email authentication records. What that means for senders and litigators.
6 min
May 2026
A DMARC record is only a suggestion.
p=reject does not mean what most people think it means. A walk through what mailbox providers actually do with your policy.
8 min
Apr 2026
The SECURE Data Act moves the needle, not the bar.
What the proposed federal privacy legislation would actually change — and what it would leave exactly where it is.
9 min
Section 04 · Consult

I keep a small book of clients.

Consults run through each practice site. Pick the one that fits the shape of the work and we’ll go from there.

Deliverability + Privacy

Whizardries

Deliverability audits, abuse desk programs, and privacy consulting. Consult intake and scheduling on the Whizardries site.

Set up a consult →
Legal

Lex Protego

CAN-SPAM, CASL, GDPR, CCPA, TCPA. Retained counsel and project work. Consult intake and scheduling on the Lex Protego site.

Set up a consult →