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79 I L T A N E T . O R G Y ou just purchased an electronic signature ("eSignature") tool for your law firm. After months of evaluating vendors, security and pricing, you have landed on a great solution that is being used by clients and peer law firms alike. You carefully roll out the tool with targeted internal marketing to make sure firm users and stakeholders are all aware of the solution. And yet here you are, six months later, and it's barely being used. eSignatures are becoming commonplace in transactions large and small. Businesses increasingly use eSignatures to streamline internal approval processes and reduce contracting time with customers and partners. With the increased prominence of eSignatures, it is no surprise that law firms have started taking notice. Transactional practices, in particular, seem like obvious applications for the technolo. Yet, a small percentage of transactional attorneys regularly use eSignatures on their transactions—even when their law firms have licensed eSignature products. What should legal professionals do to nudge practicing attorneys towards regular use of eSignatures? To start, we need to understand the opportunities and challenges of this technolo. Advantages of eSignatures Signatures are a way to manifest assent to an agreement and provide an evidentiary record in bilateral or multilateral transactions. In the United States, eSignatures are defined as "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record." Moreover, both state and federal statutes make clear that "a record or signature may not be denied legal effect or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form." Thus, eSignatures are interpreted broadly and will satisfy signature requirements for agreements in domestic transactions. As a practical matter, eSignatures confer many benefits that could assist attorneys in transactional practices. • Secure audit trails – documents and signatures are tracked and encrypted to ensure all transaction assets can be independently verified • Authentication – signatories can be identified using IP address, geolocation, multi-factor authentication or knowledge-based authentication • Efficiency – documents can be executed in a fraction of the time of handwritten signatures • Convenience – parties can execute agreements from anywhere—on a laptop, phone or tablet— without the need for a printer or scanner While handwritten signatures often fail to include any evidentiary record other than the signature itself or an email from which the signature was sent, eSignatures are often accompanied by significant supporting information to confirm that a particular person signed a document. Thus, eSignatures can provide stronger evidence than handwritten signatures to enforce contracts. In addition, eSignatures provide a much better client experience by making it more convenient for clients to execute their agreements and close deals sooner. Objections to Using eSignatures Attorneys most often resist adopting eSignatures because of either practical issues or questions of enforceability. When addressing these objections, it is important to recognize that while attorneys often have a good handle

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