Digital Signing of Documents for Business Lawyers

  • May 07, 2022
  • Kathleen Robichaud

Many of us have become comfortable with remote and digital signing.  Some of us even believe that there are only the oddest of people left in the world who thinks that paper is even necessary. This is not the reality though. People are still using wet ink signatures.  Documents are still being created. Some of them are being authenticated - paper documents that is - and most of us still need to deal with that reality even those of us who think it pure insanity.

So, while remote and digital signing can simplify things, they can also complicate things.  For example, they are not one and the same.  They can be, but I recall the maxim that a square is a rectangle, but, a rectangle is not a square. It is also possible to have an in-person meeting where everyone signs documents digitally.  It is also possible to meet remotely, but not have anything signed digitally. Remote signing does not mean that a digital signature was or must be obtained.  With remote signing, it is still possible to have documents that are signed with wet ink signatures.  

There are questions we should be asking and considerations we need to keep in mind with any method of signing. In relation to digital signing and remote meetings, the questions include: