Electronic signature Form for Legal Myself

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A person’s legal signature is whatever their signature is at the time they sign.That said, using the same signature is useful and customary for a rew reasons. First, it allows it to be compared to things you signed previously. This makes people feel confident that you are who you say you are. Second, in some situations, such as using a credit card, if you sign differently, it’s likely the merchant will refuse the card. They may even take the card and/or call police, assuming it to be stolen. This scenario is also likely to happen in other situations where the person who is getting your signature has something to compare it to.It is important that it be the same if you want to use things like credit cards. It is not, however, a legal necessity, it is more of a convenience. If, for example, you are seriously injured and you can’t sign your name, you can mark an X on the signature line of a consent to treatment form as a legal signature. If you are suddenly unable to sign your name because of an acquired disability, then there are different ways to ‘sign’ things legally, even though it no longer matches your old signature.

During my divorce I did the majority of the writing, paperwork, and delivery to save costs. Since saving cost was part of the reason I got quite creative with process serving. In the local court rules (every court jurisdiction has their own rules) there were only two restrictions. You couldn't do it yourself. The person signing that they did it had to be over 18 years old. There was no verification. There was no identification. There was no requirement that they show up to court to prove anything. A signature on the court approved form said they were over 18 and they delivered some papers. Good to go.My ex's attorney was doing her best job to raise billable hours and delays in the process. At some point in time she had made a mistake and brought a motion to an ex-parte court (only one party needs to be present ex-parte). The ex-parte court overlooked that this motion could only be ordered ex-parte with my signature on an agreeing form. I didn't agree! I got notice she did this on a Friday through the courts electronic forms processing. I couldn't see what she did until Monday. Because of other rules and process I only had that day to correct it. I didn't even get a certified copy until Tuesday!I didn't have time to go home and study it. I didn't have time to get legal help. I hammered it out on my laptop in the court lobby, printed it at Kinko's a block away, and then had another conundrum. Attorney's are supposed to make a good faith effort to tell the other party about ex-parte motions. Of course she didn't do that for me, but I was going to for her. I printed another set of complete documents that would move her motion from ex-parte to our actual assigned judge on the required 14 day calendar. A cover sheet explained this was my good faith message about an ex-parte action, and also moving her motion to the motions calendar.This would require a process server. I'm running out of time. I can't do it myself. The other attorney's office is across the street from the Kinko's in the downtown core.This is the epic part, and just revenge for the (dis)honest mistake and wasting my day. I walked outside the courthouse, found the stinkiest, liquor drenched bum I could find. I paid him $10 to go to her office, of a major law firm, in a top story of huge skyscraper, and deliver them and sign the paperwork saying he did it. I accompanied him, told the building lobby attendants he had legal business there and showed them her business card. Up the elevators, walked past the receptionist for the firm who just sat there open-mouthed. Same thing “he has legal business with ”. Down the hall, she was in a meeting with other attorneys. So he walked right in, dropped off the papers, now loaded with his stench, the other attorneys are backing away wondering what the hell, and I said “see you in 30 minutes if you object.”I made it back to the courthouse and to the ex-parte court in time to explain the error, the corrected paperwork, get a revised order canceling her order, and putting everything on the 14 day calendar. The accepting clerk asked if this had been served. Yes, here you are: a Service of Process document, properly signed by a drunk, snaggletoothed, unbathed bum.The 14 day extension gave me enough time to write a valid objection and her motion was denied. The actual issue was of little importance except it inconvenienced me. It would have been a pretty routine temporary change in a six year custody battle. She got petty about it, and I got petty back in spades.

As a startup founder of three years myself, I can relate to how legal housekeeping can be messy. Once a year, I have our own lawyers go through and do an audit of all of our legal paperwork (which costs a couple thousand dollars to be extremely thorough, but it’s worth it). Luckily, there are now many ways to easily manage and track all of your legal, financial, and HR documents via third-party sites that specialize in these management proceedings. I wrote a blog post about this awhile back titled “5 Ways to Save Time Dealing With Documents” which highlights certain sites that can be very beneficial depending on what paperwork you’d like to track or manage. They are as follows:1. GroupDocsGroupDocs is a new, comprehensive online service for document creation and management. It has multiple features, including a viewer for reading documents in your browser, an electronic signature service, an online document converter, a document assembly service, a feature for comparing different versions of a document, and an annotation feature. An individual plan is $10 per month for limited storage and 500 documents, while a group plan for up to 9 people is $19 per user per month. Based on the number of features and pricing, GroupDoc is a good-value purchase for a small business. As you’ll see below, GroupDocs can be cheaper than a service that offers only one such feature.2. signNowWhen you’re closing a deal and need to get documents signed, the last thing you need is a slow turnaround due to fax machine problems or the postal service. The solution is to use an electronic signature service such as signNow, which is one of the most popular e-signature companies in the world. This service allows you to email your documents to the person whose signature you need. Next, the recipient undergoes a simply e-signing process, and then signNow alerts you when the process is completed. Finally, signNow electronically stores the documents, which are accessible at any time. As a result, you can easily track the progress of the signature process and create an audit trail of your documents. The “Professional” plan is recommended for sole proprietors and freelancers, and costs $180 per year ($15 per month) for up to 50 requested signatures per month. The “Workgroup” plan is geared towards teams and businesses, and it costs $240 per user per year ($20 per month per user), for unlimited requested signatures.3. signNowsignNow is another e-signature service. Similar to signNow, signNow allows you to upload a PDF file, MS Word file or web application document. Next, you can edit the document, such as by adding initials boxes or tabs, and then email them out for signatures. Once recipients e-sign the document, signNow notifies you and archives the document. signNow offers low rates for these services: a 1-person annual plan with unlimited document sending costs $11 per month. An annual plan for 10 senders with unlimited document sending costs only $39 per month.4. ExariExari is a document assembly and contract management service that assists in automating high-volume business documents, such as sales agreements or NDAs. First, the document assembly service allows authors to create automated document templates. No technical knowledge is required; most authors are business analysts and lawyers. Authors have a variety of options for customizing documents, such as fill-in-the-blank fields, optional clauses, and dynamic updating of topic headings. They also can add questions that the end user must answer. Once you send out the document, the user answers the questionnaire, and Exari uses that data to customize the document. Next, the contract management feature allows you to store and track both the templates and the signed documents. Pricing is based on the size and scope of your planned implementation, so visit their website for more information.5. FillanyPDFIt’s a hassle having to print out PDF forms in order to complete them. Fortunately, FillanyPDF is a service that allows you to edit, fill out and send any PDFs, while entirely online. This “Fill & Sign” plan costs $5 per month, or $50 per year. If you subscribe to the “Professional” plan, you can also create fillable PDFs using your own documents. With this service, any PDF, JPG or GIF file becomes fillable when you upload it to the site. You can modify a form using white-out, redaction and drawing tools. Then, you can email a link to your users, who can fill out and e-sign your form on the website. FillanyPDF also allows you to track who filled out your forms, and no downloads are necessary to access these services.  The “Professional” plan costs $49 per month, or $490 per year.Switching firms can be a hassle. As a former startup attorney, I have a bit of advice about finding the right attorney for your business: it’s best to focus on the specific attorney you’ll be working with. He or she should have a solid understanding of the ins and outs of your business industry, a deep knowledge of the legal issues your startup may face, and previous work experience with startups to ensure a quality and efficient work product. This is absolutely key when matching our startup clients at UpCounsel to attorneys on our platform who can perform their legal work and hash out their legal projects in a timely manner. We also allow clients to store any and all of their legal documents directly on UpCounsel so they don’t have to go searching in alternative places for the correct paperwork. It’s proven to be a free and lightweight way to store legal documents that our clients love. Here's what it looks like:As I’ve mentioned, it’s more important to find the right attorney as opposed to the right law firm. And seeing as you’re a startup, our own startup clients typically save an average of 50-60% on their legal work, since the attorneys don't include overhead fees (a.k.a. the fees included for doing business with the firm itself) in their invoices.Hope this gives you a deeper look into what other sites and services are out there. If you have any questions or would like more information on how best to handle your legal housekeeping/ attorney matters, feel free to signNow out to me directly. As a former startup attorney at Latham & Watkins, I’d be happy to give you some guidance.

A Quora inquiry is neither legal advice nor attorney work product. I am not your lawyer.While the answer others have given (“No”) is correct, I’d like to argue some of the reasoning.TL;DR:It’s not. As of right now, it’s only available in the U.S., although there have been plans announced to acquire a lawfirm in the UK. See: LegalZoom to make first UK acquisitionA note on other answers to this questionThe claim that “Mexico is not standardized” is at least as false as the claim that the U.S. is. Let me elaborate:For most of the reasons people need LegalZoom, which is fairly standardized documentation like wills, company charters of incorporation, or real estate deeds.Both the United States and Mexico are Federal countries, which means, among many other things, that some laws governing these documents (like tax laws stating how much tax should a corporation pay and how) are Federal, but most laws setting forth how the company is set up are State laws. (In Mexico’s case this is slightly different - most stock companies would be governed by Federal law, because they would be considered comerciantes (merchants) and therefore be subject to merchantile laws which are Federal - but I digress.)For the sake of example, if you wanted to incorporate a company in Mexico, you would have to go to a (State) Notary Public (who is a licensed attorney in Mexico), he or she would either draft the articles of incorporation or revise the ones you have drafted, seal the articles of incorporation and thereby issue a formal incorporation deed, then enroll the corporation into the Public Registry of Property (State) or Commerce (Federal) depending on whether the company is considered a merchant, and enroll the company with the Tax Registry (Federal).Depending on what the company does, its contracts and its activities will sometimes be regulated by State laws and sometimes by Federal laws - but this is at least as true for the U.S. as it is for Mexico.For example, in Mexico, only Federal authorities can authorize banks, whereas some U.S. states retain the power to issue State-only banking licenses; a Federal authorization is part of the myriad requirements needed to open a private hospital or import a medical device into Mexico, whereas in some limited cases, the U.S. allows State authorities to do it.As an important final note, it bears pointing out that, unlike the U.S., where State bar accreditation is required to practice law (which has raised interesting challenges for LegalZoom already - see Settlement Allows LegalZoom to Offer Legal Services in N.C.), in Mexico, all licensed attorneys can practice throughout the country. Recently, there have been attempts to change this through legislation, but to this date, they have not prospered.The ChallengeMany of the “traditional” criticisms for the lack of innovation in the global legal sector are doubly or triply true for Mexico, where the Chambers Tier 1 lawyers in each practice area have shown very similar names throughout at least the last 20 years. The pressure for top-tiered Mexican lawyers and lawfirms to innovate usually does not come so much from the innovative technologies making waves in other jurisdictions, but rather, from the competition that arises from the integration with (or assimilation by) “global” (but really mostly U.S.) law firms to smaller Mexican firms. (See for example Jones Day to Open New Office in Mexico City | Law.com, Baker & McKenzie, DLA Piper Beef Up Presence in Mexico | The American Lawyer, Greenberg Traurig’s Mexico City Office Celebrates 5th Anniversary | News | Greenberg Traurig LLP, to mention a few).In terms of legislation, Mexico is arguably on the vanguard of technology adoption - on paper. Contracts that are considered “commercial” acts for purposes of Mexican Federal commercial laws can, in theory, be valid if executed by e-mail, digitally signed, and even digitally signNowd if the law requires that they be, since at least 2005. The recent Fintech Law draft bill would have provided a fairly robust legal framework for a number of fintech market participants, from debt and equity crowdfunders to payment system providers and cryptocurrency exchanges, but it got suspended because of the earthquake and is in hiatus at least until Congress’s first ordinary sessions period.However, Mexican contracting parties have been slow and distrustful to adopt these new changes - I drafted my first memo on a client consult of the legality of digital contract in 2012, and saw my first digitally signed contract last week - this despite the fact that since 2003, the Mexican tax system requires all taxpayers to have an electronic signature that complies with the legal safety standards, and which can, in theory, be used to sign contracts.A lot of this resistance comes from the (correct or incorrect) appreciation in the market that Mexican courts would not necessarily understand or agree that a digital contract was concluded at a given point in time, despite the apparent clarity of “black letter law” in the matter.Nevertheless, many lawyers, including me, believe that this reluctance to embrace innovation can be overcome if and when more lawyers are the first to embrace these changes.The opportunityAs the 15th economy in the world, with a small-but-growing startup ecosystem greatly bolstered by government support across many administrations and more than one governing party, with many global corporations having a relatively strong presence, and with its proximity to the U.S., Mexico is an attractive destination for tourism, foreign investment, and even expats. These people all need legal services, and they would much prefer a service they are familiar with than a lawyer who, on occasions literally, doesn’t speak their language.In addition, the domestic market often complains about the fact that it does not understand what it is paying for when it retains legal services; especially when many lower-tier notaries and lawyers simply push forward their templates of legal documents and expect to charge for that.LegalZoom’s “self-help” offer of standardized documents with a ‘wizard’-type assistant to fill in blanks can be expanded fairly easily to include a repository of standardized Mexican documents in Spanish language, and rapidly complemented with natural language processing and machine translations (reviewed by Mexican lawyers who speak the client’s language) to prepare legal documents with their “courtesy translations” included for the client.Likewise, its more comprehensive offers, which include packages of legal consults with a licensed specialized attorney, can be resolved quickly by partnering with local firms much in the same way LegalZoom already does in the U.S. - without the added problem of needing one partner per state.In a limited number of cases, partnerships with notaries and digital certification service providers could allow LegalZoom to turn its standardized documents into actual signNowd deeds, certified digitally - thereby reducing duplication and messaging costs for both LegalZoom, its partners, and ultimately, the client.The marketA key factor for the success of a startup is its capacity to adapt its product to the markets it caters for. In this respect, LegalZoom’s market requires a fairly tech-savy customer - someone who, in addition to needing the service, at the very least owns a home computer and has relatively good internet access.Unfortunately, and despite a signNowly growing trend of further digital inclusion, this is still not true for an important sector of the Mexican market.The problemThe greatest resistance to change comes from the legal industry itself ( and by industry, I mean this in the broadest possible sense - including judges, officials and regulators). If judges cannot be convinced that the digitally signed contract is, in fact, a contract, or, for that matter, if trustees, banks, government officials and private counterparties still refuse to accept electronically signed documents or what they view as machine-generated content, LegalZoom would have to engage in costly litigation to get its document accepted.Furthermore, even this dire picture fails to take into account the reaction that traditional lawyers are likely to have to LegalZoom’s competition.ConclusionLegalZoom would, without a doubt, be welcome by clients in Mexico. Probably not so much by lawyers and regulators (but these resistances can be overcome). None of this is new for LegalZoom. The question, then, is whether the existing market for legal services in Mexico is best served by services provided in the form of a digital platform with self-help tools.I personally think it would be a great opportunity for LegalZoom.PostscriptLegalZoom - if you’re listening, should you ever take an interest in the Mexican market, some of us are very interested in seeing this change. It makes sense to signNow out to younger lawyers (myself included) and notaries public who can probably help.

(I started to answer a very short answer and ended up with a long entry. I hope you find it useful.)As Richard Tuisk said, it depends a lot on where you are from. However, let me tell you what my experience has been so far in Estonia, what I think it is good and what I would see as a downside of living here. Of course, I need to qualify my answer by saying that I am Latin American, but also have lived in four other countries (including the US where I went to college).A quick introduction: Estonia is a small country located in the Baltic Sea next to Russia and Latvia and very close to Finland. It is part of the European Union. The area of the country is roughly the same as Switzerland or as Maryland and Massachussets combined. There is about 1.3 million people living here which means it is not densely populated. The country is essentially flat, except in the south where you find the highest point at 318 meters (1043 ft). The main city and where I live in is Tallinn. The population is about 400,000 people. Tartu is the second city with about 100,000 people and all the rest of towns are smaller than that.Immigration systemIf you are European, moving here is no problem as you enjoy all the benefits of any country within the European Union. If you are not European, the main reasons people immigrate here is to work which would guarantee a working visa or if you are married to an Estonian citizen which allows you to apply for a visa as long as you have enough funds to live here.Overall, the process to get a short-term visa is straight forward. Obtaining a long-term visa is more complicated as you have to speak the language at a relatively high level. Obtaining a citizenship requires that you give up your own citizenship.JobsAlthough Estonia suffered also during the 2008 crisis, there is enough jobs in areas of business and technology for people to move here. One of the problems Estonia faces is that it does not have enough people to fill all jobs in IT areas as I hear.There is a few big companies who recruit people from abroad, but if you don't speak the local language, your opportunities are reduced to the IT area (I work for Skype which originated here in Estonia which was acquired by Microsoft in 2011). You can see a list of notable companies here: List of companies of EstoniaSocial interactionEstonians tend to be reserved in comparison to other Europeans. I suggest to foreigners who come here to be aware of differences so they are not taken by surprise. Some examples of faux pas I have encountered:Using smalltalk in a conversation.Saying good morning when coming to office or good bye when leaving.Smiling with no reason (I have to accept that this could be awkward in Northern Europe and some parts of the US, but it is totally normal in Mediterranean or Latin American environments).Being noisy. People love their quiet here.However, it is totally Ok to try to make a conversation in English especially with young people. I am learning Estonian and try to use the language when I can, but in some occasions (say, at the pharmacy), I need to switch to English and have never found anyone being annoyed by that.The exception to all of this is if you meet young people. They tend to be more open and curious (especially women). I am speaking about more casual environments such as a cafe or a restaurant, but a bit less at work. Another obvious exception is if you are in a touristy area (such as the Old Town in Tallinn), but this should go without saying.It is totally Ok to be in a group of people and be totally silent. For example, you can have lunch or share a cab with Estonians when no one is speaking, but there is no awkwardness on it. Another thing is that people do not demonstrate much through their expressions which is one of the difficult things to deal with for me. Remember, I come from a country where you smile or frown or show your teeth if you want someone to understand you clearly.When having a conversation with an Estonian, you should say what you mean and mean what you say (remember what I said about smalltalk?). For example, if you ask "how are you?" to an Estonian, do it only if (a) you really want to know how the other person is, and (b) don't ask it if you don't know the person well. I value that Estonians take your word at face value and you should do the same with them.One word of advice is that Estonians can be very critical of others, but they are mainly critical of themselves. Someone told me once that complaining is a national sport, and I have to agree with that. In other words, when they tell you that something is truly bad here in this country, you have to take it with a grain of salt.Because of this, you should also expect that people are straight forward with you. In some cases, this borders on rudeness if I measure by my home country's standards, but here is totally Ok. I have seen a few foreigners getting shocked by that, but you get used to it. In other words, they are not politically correct (this I like very much).Also, because people are economical with the language, you shouldn't expect what I would call, a "warm" communication most of the time. As a latin person, I need to say and hear things on a beautiful way, but this doesn't happen here much. It is different when you start to get to know locals.Which brings me to the last point. It takes a while before you break the ice with an Estonian, but it is worth waiting. I have had the chance to establish a closer link with some locals outside my wife's family and I find an honesty and sincerity that I haven't seen in other places. If you get to that point, congratulations, as you have made it through this journey. By this time, you should also be an expert on sharing saunas with people you don't know (and yes, naked) and have had your share of vodka.Quality of life, services, infrastructureWhen compared to other places where I have lived, I have to say that Estonia still doesn't signNow the level of living in Germany or the US, but it is getting closer by the day. However, I would say that Estonia is already at the level that I would call it first-world country in most aspects.Infrastructure and services need some improvement, but they provide the minimum level of service. For example, if you don't have a car, you can use public transportation everywhere even if buses, trains or trams are sometimes old. Roads in Tallinn are Ok, even if you find potholes in some places. Services such as schools and hospitals are public which means that there is always a waiting list. If you need to visit a specialist doctor, you have to wait. On the other hand, the wait is not as bad as in third-world countries (like where I come from). Also, those services are basically free. The downside is that there is almost no private service, and even the ones there are rely partially on the public health system for some aspects.I have had two children born here and had no complaints about the process. In fact, I felt that everything was very professional and that they always try to do their best. However, when I spoke with Estonians, some of them were very surprised that I spoke highly of the hospital system. I guess it's up to my personal point of view in this case.Taxes are low. Personal income tax is 21% flat for everyone. If you live here and your visa allows it, you can create your own start-up in no time which is prevalent among young people in IT.By the way, unemployment was at 8% at the end of Q3 in 2013. I am no economist, but I understand that this is still considered high. However, it came down from 10.2% at the end of 2012.Food, shoppingEstonia has the typical supermarkets like any other European country. There is also local markets, but you probably need to speak Estonian or Russian. Typical food you find are potatoes, wheat-like grains, oats and so on. Pork meat and fish are eaten often here, but beef is not yet too common. Vegetables and fruits tend to be expensive. I miss having international food though. There is one supermarket in town (Stockmann) that carries some international products, but it is very expensive. I was used to visiting Oriental-type shops in Ireland and Germany, but there is none here that I know of.There is a few shopping centres, but the variety is not wide. I am in favor of buying local to support businesses here, but in many cases, we end up buying from abroad because of the lack of options or because we would have to wait for too long. For example, my wife and I love movies (yeah, still buying old-fashioned DVDs), but there is no shop that fills our expectations. Because of that, we buy everything from Amazon.ActivitiesIf you love nature, you are in luck. There is a lot of natural areas in the country and they are a short drive away. There is plenty of sea shores, forests, rivers and lakes. In the Summer you can do hiking, camping, canoeing and you can add cross country skiing in the Winter. Estonians love nature in general.If you are a city person (like myself), then that's another story. There is a few theatres, cinemas, galleries and so on, but everything is limited. Tallinn itself has the most interesting activities in the center. There is plenty of good restaurants though.Cinemas show the popular movies like everywhere else and you can find some artsy type of cinemas for alternative movies. No movie is dubbed here, but they usually carry subtitles in both Estonian and Russian.What is impressive about this countryThere is a few good things that I haven't seen outside Estonia. The first one is the electronic system prevalent in this country. When you are a foreigner and get your Estonian ID, you are also getting your electronic identity. With that, you can file taxes online, access information about property, bank accounts, mobiles, whatever services you need. When you get your local ID number, you automatically get a local e-mail address at the eesti.ee domain that you can redirect to your personal account. With that, you never miss an official communication (such as whenever is time to file your taxes).That ID has also legal validity and you can sign documents electronically anywhere in the world. For example, if you apply to get a car leasing, you don't have to show up at the bank necessarily. They send you some forms, you put your ID card in your computer reader, sign the document electronically, and send it back and that's it. It is the equivalent of putting your signature on paper in front of the bank official or lawyer. Estonian citizens and permanent residents are even allowed to vote online with their ID.A second impressive area is bureaucracy: it is a well-oiled machine. One recurrent example is taxes. You get the notification that your taxes are ready to file, you login to the tax office site, sign in, check that they have the correct information that they have collected from your company, employer and so on, sign with your ID card, and that's it. It might take as little as five minutes. My wife and I file jointly, so it takes us much longer: twenty minutes (and that's because we always forget to do one crucial step so we are delayed).The government doesn't even use paper for their minister meetings. They file everything electronically which is made available so you can follow up agendas, minutes and whatever happens there.You want to open your own company? It might take literally twenty minutes to do that too. All of this thanks to the frictionless bureaucratic system they have here. You want to park? Send a text to the number 1902 with your plate number and where you are parking and it will be charged to your mobile.One more impressive part: internet. Besides having decent speeds, there is practically free access points everywhere through the country. I personally have witnessed free available working access points in national parks and public beaches. You can read this article that talks about this (read the date: 2005!): Estonia sets shining Wi-Fi exampleIn my case, I don't use access points much because I have a decent LTE connection with my mobile. Mobile companies have good coverage and relatively good service. I remember that when we got our internet when we moved here, it took only one day to install it. When I measured the effective speed a few months later out of curiosity, it was 50 Mbps. Not bad.The downsidesAs anywhere else, there is a few things that you need to be aware of that could be difficult to adapt to.The first part for me is the social interaction which tends to be dry and quiet. I mentioned that above, so not much more to say here.Another one is the weather. In Winter, the sun might rise at 9:30 in the morning and set at 3 in the afternoon. That's just about six hours of sunlight. If you add that it is cloudy most of the time during the Winter, then you realise how dark it might be. As counterposition, Summers are amazing (up to 20 hours of sunlight and clear skies easily).Winters are relatively long. It gets cold around the end of October and stays that way until around April. It varies from year to year, but sometimes the temperature drops to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 F). Life rarely stops here because of the cold or snow though. I have taken the bus at -30 degrees Celsius. It makes for an interesting ride.One more problem for a foreigner to live here is that you feel a bit isolated from the world. Flights are available mainly to neighbouring countries plus Germany, UK and the Netherlands. If you are from another country, you always need to make connections which makes it longer and more expensive to go back home.Last, if you are from a big city, you might find even Tallinn a bit provincial. It is changing as of late though. On the other hand, there is some positive things out of this too: less crime and virtually no traffic jam as I know it (I live 20 km. from work and make it in 30 minutes on a good day and 45 on a bad one).If you are thinking to move here, I definitely recommend this place.

This subject is covered — as with all things legally speaking: mostly/in part — by Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). The UCC is a federal law that many, but not all, state and local jurisdictions have adopted. While I’m going to rely on this, I’m also going to rely on my extensive experience; and, for the record, I am in Texas.Let’s deal with some ambiguities in the question, first.Is the business incorporated (this includes nonprofits)?Is the office manager an officer or director of the corporation? — Here, director refers to having a seat on the board of directors (BOD) of the corporation, not that managing director, e.g., (of some division) is your job title.A managing director or other director, where that is a job title, may be an officer of the corporation. That would matter. For instance, a managing director might also hold the title of Vice President.A corporate charter, usually registered with the Secretary of State of some State (e.g., Delaware), will ask for a listing of important people: the President, usually at least one Vice President, a Secretary, and a Treasurer, though it’s not uncommon for those last two roles to be united as Secretary-Treasurer. — These are your corporate officers. At least, the most basic ones.Notice: CEO and CFO, etc. — these are not listed.A corporation’s (and really, any business’s) bylaws will set out how directors of the Board will be chosen; how many; etc. And, in here, you may find the C-suite titles, like Chief Executive Officer and Chief Information Officer.A limited liability company (LLC) has members and managers. The various types of partnerships have partners, of course (and partners can be corporations or LLCs).It appears that the office manager should how the business he or she works at was formed. — Don’t trust the way the business’s name is styled on the sign outside; that tells you nothing about what is really going on.However, if you don’t even know if you’re an officer of the company, it might not matter. Unless it does. — So, if you’re going to be endorsing bad checks, you should figure this out.One thing that may help you, in any situation, is to sign the check in a way that indicates your representative capacity. For instance:Jared Maloney, CFOXYZ 123, INC.—You are making it known thatThis is a business, so put your job title after your signature. — You are signing in a representative capacity only.Don’t rely on the preprinted information at the top of the check. — You are signing on behalf of (OBO) something or someone else. Write that thing or person’s name on the check near where you signed your name and indicated your title with respect to that thing or that person.A sole proprietorship may have a name like Maloney’s Computers. It may also have a name like Computer Depot. — What’s missing is that the second version is a sole proprietorship operating under an assumed name, and the full title of the business might be Jared Maloney doing business as Computer Depot.The is a presumption, almost, that the owner of the sole proprietorship is the officer-equivalent. In fact, he or she may say that he’s the President of the company, or Owner of the company, interchangeably.Be careful, though. Most anything can have an assumed name.→ XYZ 123, INC. DBA Computer Depot is probably a valid business name. That means it’s a corporation even though it doesn’t have to say INC. on the end of its business signs!—And, this can get even more complex. LLCs can choose to be taxed like a sole proprietorship, or like an S-Corp., or like a C-Corp.Yes. — More than one type of corporation exists.—I’ve likely already lost 75% of my readership by now, so I won’t even talk about hybrid business structures where a general partnership has a corporation as the general partner and an LLC as the limited partner, and each has the same or different officers. — Attorneys and bright businesspeople (or conmen) can do some very interesting things if they have the internet and money for the filing fees.Let’s explore the sole proprietorship situation and assume you, the office manager, don’t know if the business is really structured as a sole proprietorship or if you’re an officer or director of the company yourself.You know you are an authorized signer on the bank account. Now, I’m bringing in the banking aspect of this.The other authorized signer on the business’s bank account is the President.You have a choice now. You’re not sure if the bank account will have enough funds in it to clear the check when it is received and presented by the recipient to his/its bank (and then by that bank to your business’s bank).How do I sign?—Jared Maloney, Office ManagerComputer Depot—Jared Maloney, OBO John Doe, President of Computer DepotIn today’s time, if you sign the second way, I doubt the check will have any trouble getting cashed by its recipient, so long as that recipient doesn’t present it directly to a teller of your bank.Years ago, I worked in new accounts at a retail bank, and I never saw such a signature on the signature card of any form of deposit bank account. — I wouldn’t have allowed that to be the signature of record on one, and I would have been very wary to authorize a teller to cash a check that was signed that way.This is how that works!The term relationship banker exists, and that gives you the idea that you have a specific person you deal with at your local bank. He or she is your banker. So, if you started your relationship with me on the deposit side of the bank, then your account would have my initials on it for bank employees to see. — Should there be an issue with you in the future, there was a good chance someone would call me about you for analysis or decision-making.If, however, you got a loan, and even sometimes when you were just a relatively big business customer, the officer assigned to you would be your lender. — Lenders tend to have titles like AVP, VP, SVP, and EVP. President, too, of course.At that point, your account, on its profile that bank employees could see, would see the initials of your officer as primary and then mine as secondary.For routine matters — for instance, you have a problem with a teller — and, that’s what we’re talking about now — a funny check is trying to be cashed issued from that account — the teller would call me first. If I couldn’t solve the problem within what I considered my relevant risk profile, or if it dealt with credit issues (e.g., “Does the loan officer want to honor your bad check or let it bounce?”), then I’d call up your lender, or his or her boss — if your lender was busy — to get an answer.Repeating, the issue is with the signature line sayingJared Maloney, OBO John Doe, President of Computer Depot—If a teller called me up, I’d check to see who the authorized signers were on the account. If Jared and John were both signers, then I don’t know if I would’ve cared.It just reads “An Authorized Signer on behalf of Another Authorized Signer, (who’s) President of The Company Named on the Account.”While that’s not the signature exactly found on the signature card (or the list of authorized signatures addendum), it contains the signature of one of the signers.If that was all in print, then that’s not a valid signature on the check. Obviously, you’d signed your name and print the President’s name. Don’t sign his name too!In either of the cases (whether Jared signed with his title [Office Manager], or if he signed in the OBO way), what if Jared Maloney is not an authorized signer on the check?—If that check is presented directly to a teller or other officer of your bank, and that person takes the time to figure out you aren’t an authorized signer, then the check won’t be honored. — The person (e.g., your employer or vendor or whoever) will be turned away.That’s not just bank policy. It’s a bank’s policy because banking regulations demand that it be bank policy. At least for banks that are FDIC-insured.And, on the flipside, as I said before, no matter how you sign the check (to create some idea of relinquishing all personal liability related to understanding of probable NSF situations in the future of that check!) — if you’re an authorized signer on the account — it’ll likely be cashed if the check is presented directly to your bank.And, if the person or the representative of the business, to whom the check was written, presents the check electronically to their own bank, or in a night deposit bag, or in a big ol’ bag with other checks and monies, — and, even if it’s presented alone to a teller of his or its bank — the likelihood that it will be cashed is high.So. You can attempt to mitigate your personal liability for understanding beforehand that the check you are writing will not be cashable, in the future, immediate or otherwise, due to insufficient funds, by changing the way you sign the check.So long as you’re not an officer (or, perhaps, just a director) of the business or nonprofit. — Maybe.Let’s compare a few situations. We will assume that all people are signers on the bank accounts.Janet is the Chief Executive Officer and President of a corporation. She is also the office manager, but she’s not the bookkeeper. She writes a check without asking the bookkeeper if the check will be any good.You can forget the CEO title, here. That’s not the type of officer we care about. President is, though!Signing as the Office Manager doesn’t mean squat, here. You can’t reasonably expect to use a lesser title to get out of personal liability.The notion that there is a bookkeeper doesn’t mitigate anything. Prior to writing the check, Janet could’ve called the bookkeeper; called the bank and checked the account balance; or, waited to write and deliver the check until such things could be done to make her certain she would not be committing check fraud.Janet has a risk, here, of being personally liable, because the President of the company, in most situations, has the ultimate authority to view any financial statements of the company. The President usually signs tax returns for a corporation; or, at least, that’s a possibility. The IRS would accept it.That risk is less, but not theoretically impossible to realize, if she signs the check as Janet, President of XYZ 123, INC.Sam is the husband of the 100% shareholder/owner of XYZ 123, INC. His wife, Janet, is the President, and he holds the somewhat ceremonial title of Treasurer, because he has his own job and doesn’t really do much but bookkeeping for the business at night. He is the night bookkeeper and the titular office manager. — When he arrives to start his work, his wife, Janet, calls him and tells him to prepare a check for $10,000 made payable to one of her vendors.Is the amount of that check high, in his experience, for the corporation to make on the spur of the moment?The bank is closed and he has no access to online banking for this account.He will know the actual book balance of that account when he’s done with his night work, but he hasn’t even started.Sam has risk, here, of being personally liable. He is the Treasurer of the corporation. Despite being ordered to prepare a check and deliver it to a vendor on demand, he could choose to ignore that. — The President can’t fire the Treasurer. Only the Board of Directors can fire the Treasurer. — If the President, his wife, doesn’t want to wait for him to do his work, so that he is comfortable with writing the check himself, then she can come in and sign the check herself.Signing as Sam, Treasurer, XYZ 123, INC. may shield him, but this set of facts may not bear that out.Oscar started out at a corporation as the office manager. Over the years, he was promoted to hold the position, also, of Chief Financial Officer, but he was still the titular office manager. He no longer held a primary bookkeeping function at the company, but he did review all of the corporation’s financial statements. He had been elevated to CFO by a meeting of the BOD, but no change had been made to the corporate charter. If you checked with the Secretary of State (SOS), his name would not be found listed with the SOS. A Vice President of the corporation just called him and told him to authorize payment for all invoices currently owed to a particular vendor, because the VP was upset with it and intended to switch to a new vendor. Once he is off the phone, he calls down to an accounts payable clerk and orders him to prepare a check, to the vendor, for all outstanding invoices. While the A/P clerk was working, he checked the bank account balance and his cash flow data; and, determined that the check would likely be returned NSF. Pretty soon, the A/P clerk knocks on his office door and brings in the check for him to sign.Is the VP who called him listed on the corporate charter? — Oscar checks, and he is. Despite Oscar’s in-house title of CFO, the VP is his boss. (We’ll assume that the bylaws don’t say otherwise, but that is really an internal matter.)Oscar checks the authorized signers list for the bank account and sees that he is an authorized signer but the VP in question is not.In order to verify that the VP understood what he was asking Oscar to do, he called the VP back, but he didn’t answer. — What do the corporate bylaws and associated memoranda, if any, say should be done in this situation? — He looks, and the bylaws are nonspecific.He places a call to his boss, the President, who is also the boss of the VP. — The President, also, does not answer.Based on this, he signs the check and asks his assistant to make sure it got in the day’s outgoing mail.It is unlikely that Oscar will face any personal liability if this check bounces when the vendor deposits it.This is when, absolutely, the CFO should sign as Oscar, Chief Financial Officer, XYZ 123, INC.However, that doesn’t mean that the corporation won’t be held criminally liable. Oscar may avoid personal liability for this decision, but he may face it (i.e., the corporation may face it); and, it might be a criminal charge, not just a civil one.His job may be in jeopardy! Of course, it may have been in jeopardy if he refused to sign the check and send it on. — Without any help from bylaws or other corporate policies related to this event, he’s in a pickle.He may be screwed either way. — If anything, if he’s fired for his decision, either way, he has a good case for unemployment benefits.Finally, let’s run the simplest scenario.Sarah is the office manager for Johnny B. Goode dba Goode’s Goods. Johnny is the owner of the company, and he rules it with an iron fist. He’s in control of everything. She knows the company is a sole proprietorship; they’ve talked about it before. Johnny calls her up and says a subcontractor is expecting a $2,500 payment. He’d forgotten to tell her; she needed to write the check and go to the post office and overnight it to the subcontractor. She does as she’s told. She has no access to any financial information. On no check she’s ever written has she known whether it would clear or come back NSF. — That was above her pay grade.Sarah opens herself up, with each check she writes, to civil liability. → She can be sued.If she has the ability to sign checks, as an authorized signer on the account, she really should have the ability to make sure those checks will be good on arrival.However, there’s no way (seemingly) that she can form the intent to defraud requisite for criminal liability.She still should sign Sarah, Office Manager, Goode’s Goods.—As for the owner? → No luck for him. He is not operating in a corporate/fiduciary capacity. He has criminal and civil liability for this action and all others like it.This is why people incorporate their businesses.The last aspect to cover in this answer involves facsimile signature stamps.You can sign your name, which is the signature that is found on the business’s business bank account signature card, and turn it into an ink stamp.Your secretary or assistant or office manager or VP — anybody — can use that to stamp your signature onto a check.Some banks don’t allow facsimile signature stamps on bank account signature cards, but — for reasons similar to those I said before — they likely will be accepted at other banks, and even if your bank doesn’t accept such checks, they will likely process them if they come from another bank, because no one looks at them.I’ve never had any problems with them.A pretty big businessman I did business with had his mother law as his office manager. — She had a facsimile signature stamp which had her signature as the stamped signature!So, even though she could sign the checks, per the bank, she chose to stamp the checks with the ink stamp instead. Same signature! — Different ink.I believe she did that for liability reasons, not laziness. — By definition, the facsimile signature can be stamped by anyone, so you can never really pin down who did it.I know a bank that prints, on most checks, the facsimile signature of the bank President, and then whatever officer (or teller) has issued the check initials next to the computer printed facsimile of the President’s signature.This is a clever, de facto way of saying, “Jane Doe on behalf of Jack Dooley, Bank President”.When I’ve headed departments that use facsimile signature stamps, I have people, including myself, initial next to the signature stamps on the checks. — It’s more for a risk management/ease-of-verification purpose.Donald Trump always signs documents with a special pen. — That’s not unique to him. — I have a special pen I use to sign my signature.If you don’t have that marker or pen, respectively, then you can’t recreate the signature, no matter how talented you are.The same thing goes with that facsimile signature stamp, or printed signature. — Even if you’ve expertly copied how someone signs his or her name, you’ll never get it right because you lack the correct ink (and sometimes, paper).United States currency is signed by facsimile.If you are an office manager, and you don’t want to be responsible, use a facsimile signature stamp for whatever someone else has authorized you to be issuing checks.Maybe that person is the President of the company.If you have the authority to sign documents or checks (→ the facsimile signature stamp can be used on more than just checks!), then sign them if you feel comfortable with them.If you don’t know what you’re signing, or you’re not comfortable with it, pull out that stamp and use it!I would, and I do.When I worked at the retail bank, I could sign checks only up to a certain amount, even though I processed transactions that required me to produce checks in the millions of dollars. In order to make sure those checks would be honored by the bank, I had to make sure that I found someone else, with a higher signing limit, to co-sign with me.I had a friend who was one of the Executive Vice Presidents of the bank, and I tended to go to her. — Don’t think she signed things just because I asked!I brought her my supporting documentation and showed why I was sending so much money out of the bank. — Only once it made sense to her would she affix her signature.If you want to be the safest you can be, never sign anything you can’t confirm won’t come back as fraudulent.If you aren’t seeming to be able to achieve that, as the office manager of a business, then get your boss to sign on the order form for a facsimile signature stamp, and then, everything that comes out of the office, which he authorized you to produce when he hired you, will have his name on it.And, that will serve de facto to say: “Me OBO My Boss”.Given you have no choice in the matter, as these are orders you’re being given, you should be fine. But, to be safest — if you know (as President Trump’s White House attorney might have said) crazy shit is going on — you might just wait until someone else can sign the checks or documents, so that you have no record on them, legally; you just produced them on demand or order.If you get fired for being that careful, then you are likely to win your unemployment appeal, if everything else is satisfied, because requiring you to take on personal criminal or civil liability is not a valid power of a business manager, executive, or owner. — An order to break the law, including to be part of a conspiracy to defraud, is not a valid order.

For me it really comes down to this. There are a lot of gun laws on the books right now as it is. These gun laws have varying degrees of success. Some I don’t like but can live with, but other just plain aggravate me.To speak of where I currently call home, New York boasts some of the “toughest gun laws in the country”. Most importantly is their so-called “assault weapons” ban. It is an insane law in that I can own an AR-15, minus a few evil features. But the actual gun, the so-called “assault weapon” is entirely legal. The law is entirely ineffective as well. They imposed a ten round magazine limit, thinking this does anything, yet the Parkland shooter used 10 round mags quite effectively to carry out his heinous act. It clearly isn’t effective.What do we measure effectiveness by? For me, it is statistics. According to the FBI, there were 628 murders in New York state in 2016, 367 of these with guns. That leaves us with a per capita gun homicide rate of 1.86 per 100,000 people. New Jersey, with similarly strict gun laws has a whopping rate of 3.1 per 100,000 people. Go north to Vermont, where the gun laws were lax in 2016, that rate drops to 0.9 gun homicides per 100,000. Next door in New Hampshire has a rate of 0.6 per 100,000 people, and they have VERY lax gun laws. Head south to Massachusetts, with its tough gun laws, and that number jumps back up to 1.25 per 100,000 people. So let’s break that down, NH vs NY, in 2016 there were 16 murders in the entire state of New Hampshire, 8 of those with guns. In just the city of Syracuse NY in that same year there were 31 murders, from a quick count 19 of those were by gun. So much for those tough gun laws, but breaking down the statistics you are 3x more likely to die by gun in NY than NH (0.6 vs 1.8/100,000 people). It is simply the fact stated bluntly.9 of 16 killings solved in 2016 | New HampshireMeet the 30 homicide victims killed in Syracuse in 2016, the city's deadliest yearTable 12So now let’s get to the crux of the argument I am making here. Its quite clear from the data that the supposed “toughnes” of gun laws don’t effect crime. Some lax states have high gun homicide rates, some very low (NH is the lowest, BTW). Anti-gun groups like Giffords would have you believe in graphs like this:Reality is the data, using the same grades they give states for gun control level, looks more like this:With no statistical significance between any of those groups. Perhaps the discrepancy lies with inclusion of some other criteria, probably suicides or perhaps it also includes people shot but not killed. I’m not sure and would love to pour through their data myself, but they don’t publish it.Likely stronger determinants of gun crime are population density and poverty level of the region/state in question. Thus, most gun laws in the state of NY, as an example, are nothing but feel good legislation with no actual effectiveness on crime, they don’t tackle the root causes of why people commit crime (chiefly poverty). Thus it doesn’t make sense that a state like NY with tough handgun laws has a handgun homicide rate of 1.5 while a state like New Mexico, with incredibly lax handgun laws, has a handgun homicide rate of 0.6/100,000.So getting back to the question at hand. If you want to start talking about what legislation we need, let’s also talk about legislation you don’t need. It shouldn’t take you 6 months to go through the permitting process in NY to get a handgun when it clearly isn’t helping. And in NY I should be able to concealed carry (they make it virtually impossible here). Then maybe I’ll sit down and talk with you about Extreme Risk Protection Orders. Let’s remove the absolutely laughable concept of magazine limits, and then I’ll sit down and discuss the merits of a bump stock ban. And that’s not even touching on the subject of federal laws, such as 922r compliance (aka the “sporting purposes” clause; protip - the 2nd amendment isn’t about sports).So to summarize keep pushing for more laws when the ones we have are infringing on our rights and not keeping us safe, and what you will end up with is simply a pushback from us. If instead you want to come to the table and comprise, scratch our back and maybe we’ll scratch yours. We’ll see.

Money. Commitment. Confidence. Lack of those three.It is currently the highest priority planetary science objective, but it is expensive and risky. There have been plans since the 60's for a Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, as it's called, but nothing has launched. It got close by 1999 with an MSR project underway with planned launches in 2003 and 2005, but that incarnation was cancelled after the MCO and MPL failures in 1999. Those failures demolished our confidence in taking on the complexity of MSR. We have since rebuilt our capability and confidence in operations at Mars with several successful missions, so at least that part should not be standing in the way of MSR. What's left is the money and commitment. It's a lot of money, and NASA would have to remain committed to the objective over a few administrations.We may be on our way to clearing those hurdles. The first leg of MSR is now a pretty serious project, having just completed its Preliminary Design Review. It is called Mars 2020 (launching in 2020, hence the name). Mars 2020 will send a large Curiosity-class rover to select and acquire rock cores and soil samples for later return. Two follow-on missions in, hopefully, the 2020's will launch those samples into Mars orbit and then bring those samples from Mars orbit to Earth. If all goes well, we could have selected samples from Mars on Earth by the end of the next decade.