The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/411912
PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA BEST PRACTICES 20 signatures adhere to industry-specific regulations such as those of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If your firm has workflow, document management or enterprise content management systems in place, digital signatures can ensure signature-dependent processes remain automated from end to end, maximizing your return on those investments. Digital signatures integrate especially well with collaboration technologies such as Microsoft SharePoint, ensuring that paper doesn't make its way into otherwise automated and efficient workflows. Even if your firm is only using content- authoring applications such as Word to create documents, digital signatures can still help you create more streamlined, efficient and secure processes. They also make these processes more cost-effective, because paper no longer has to be used for printing, manually routing, archiving, etc. WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A SOLUTION When you start looking into a digital signature solution for your law firm, remember these 10 must-have features. The digital signature solution should: 1. Comply with legislation such as ESIGN and UETA and with the global standards issued by standards bodies such as NIST, ISO, OASIS, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 2. Ensure that documents are tamper-proof so signatures are invalidated if any changes are made to the content after the documents have been signed, and maintain proof of signer identity and intent 3. Integrate seamlessly with applications and systems you already use, including both content-authoring applications such as Word and Excel and workflow or document management systems such as SharePoint 4. Incorporate graphical signatures to ease user adoption and clearly indicate that a document has been signed 5. Support multiple signatures on a single document and enable signers to sign multiple pages of the same document in a single signing operation 6. Enable quick installation and easy scalability to any number of signers and require only minimal follow-up maintenance and support 7. Create digital signatures that can be viewed and verified using widely available tools such as Microsoft Office or a PDF reader, offering the same usability that people expect from paper documents 8. Sync automatically with your user directory to simplify signer management 9. Be easy to use for non-tech-savvy professionals, requiring minimal training 10. Offer a favorable ROI within one year Considering the large number of documents lawyers must sign as part of their daily routines, paper-based signature processes slow down workflows and hinder efficiency while also creating security and control risks. While this should be a real area of concern for law firms, it is also one that can be easily solved with digital signatures. DIGITAL SIGNATURE SURVEY SAYS… The recent ALM reader survey, "Signature-Dependent Processes & the Use of Digital Signatures in the Legal Market," revealed interesting data: • Respondents reported that nearly half of all documents are printed for the sole purpose of adding signatures • When asked what factors are most important in a digital signature solution, the top five answers included security and integrity of sensitive data (87%), ease of use (86%), ease of implementation (81%), acceptance by the courts (78%), and control over user management and governance policies (70%) • Regarding the biggest benefits of digital signatures, 62% cited increased efficiency (saving time on printing, etc.), 50% cited shortened turnaround time on signature approvals, 39% cited compliance with legal and audit requirements, and 39% reported establishing a paperless office/full digital automation • Legal professionals' digital signature concerns include data security and integrity (87%), control and location of sensitive data (64%), acceptance and legality of digital signatures (56%) and compliance with regulations/audit requirements (50%)