Work Smarter with a Tool Your Mom Can Use

One of the fascinating elements of social media is the ability to spark conversation. Conversations we’re interested in concern electronic signatures and electronic contract execution.

Nick Bastian, a DocuSign power user, wrote about DocuSign in a blog post, Work Smarter, Not Just Harder, dated 04/03/2008:

I am surprised at the number of agents and people that have never heard of electronic signatures. While not perfect for every situation, I believe DocuSign is a time and life saver in many situations. With our ZipForm program, it is very easy to send contracts, addendum’s or any file to a client for an electronic signature. The document returns clean, legible and secure which surely beats a faxed copy! Better yet, any document can be sent for signatures, it doesn’t have to be a “standardized” form. Many people love it because it is clean, easy and provides a great paper trail. Some agents will occasionally ask me if this is “legal” to use. Normally, I will send them a link to DocuSign.com..

A year later, Nick’s words still hold true, and according to Nick, DocuSign passes the “Can My Mom Use It?” test:

I recall sending a counter offer to my mother in law when we were negotiating the sale of her home because I was curious to see how “easy” the service is for ANYONE to use. I gave her no warning, just sent the email and explained the situation of the counter offer. She LOVED it! Now, to say she isn’t exactly a “computer geek” is an understatement.

So why am I bringing all of this up now? Last week, the conversation picked up again when the enforceability of electronic signatures was introduced to the discussion. Both Tom Gonser, DocuSign’s Founder & VP of Product Strategy and I added our thoughts. Tom explained:

I think this because we tested [DocuSign] twice in ‘Mock Trials’ with actual sitting judges, attorneys, etc.  In both cases, the court found that the overwhelming evidence generated by DocuSign transaction provides a much lower ‘relative risk’ when compared to a paper contract, or a fax contract.  DocuSign provides an encrypted audit log of all events that happened – from your email address, IP address, time-stamps, and authentication measures.  This coupled with the fact that it is literally *impossible* to change a contract signed in DocuSign makes it a very strong medium for signing contracts – again comparing this to paper/fax. The DocuSign audit trail and encrypted documents create a very strong picture of what happened.
[W]e do all the work behind the scenes to ensure your contracts will be ESIGN compliant – from use of the Consumer Consent, adoption of the signature, exact placement, audit trail, encryption, hashing, and managing records in secure environments.  All of this work is done ON EVERY TRANSACTION so that if anything ever does go to court, generating all the ‘evidence’ of signing can be done in a tiny fraction of the time it would take with a paper or fax contract.

The bottom line with electronic signatures and online contract execution from DocuSign?

1. Faster document turnaround than paper/fax with higher level of convenience for the customer
2. Lower ‘relative risk’ than paper/fax as well as lower risk of ID theft from unsecured personal data on paper at FedEx Office or the office
3. Integrated Authentication tools allow senders to determine the appropriate level of authentication that fits their needs
4. Eliminates the need to deal with counterparts
5. Warrants that contracts executed through the DocuSign system are compliant with Federal ESIGN Act
6. Used by Fortune 100 companies for millions of transactions per year

Finally, DocuSign has ALWAYS supported people retaining their own counsel to evaluate and compare DocuSign to paper, fax, and other methods. This has always resulted in a very positive finding that says DocuSign provides a lower ‘relative risk’ –  no matter if you are working in Real Estate law in California or on worldwide contracts through a Fortune 100 company.

Conversations like these help everyone – we learn what readers and users think about DocuSign, electronic signatures, and/or online contract execution. Readers and users receive more information and our collective understanding grows because we had the discussion.