eSignature Legitimateness for Legal Services in United States

How to eSign a document: e-signature legitimateness for Legal Services in United States

Hello everybody and welcome to another video of R&R Partners Bucharest. My name is Ruxandra and today we are going to talk about the electronic signature. We will refer to the procedure of electronic signature here in Romania, because the procedure could be different from state to state. One of the first things that we will have to talk about is how exactly can you generally sign a contract. There are two main ways. The first way is the most classic way. The parties come together and at the signing table each of them signs the contract and gets an original back to take home. The second way is the most modern way, but let's say the least used way: the electronic signature. We will also talk about an intermediary step, which is signing a contract via email. When you print a contract and you send it back with your signature on it, it's something between signing it in person and having an electronic signature. You are not really meeting the person face to face, but you do not have a to show your electronic signature. You're just sending the documents and you get a counter-part in scan. This has the big disadvantage that you can't really show the original of the contract and also you have to show that the person who really signed the contract and sent you back the scan of the contract was of course the administrator of the company. So, we will not refer to this procedure too much, but rather I would like to encourage all of you to try to incorporate the electronic signature in your day to day activity. The electronic signature can be one of two ways: It can either be a . This is inserted into the USB port of your computer and can be used with a little code each time you want to sign a document, usually a PDF document. The second way is using a Cloud signature. This is a bit more expensive and more complicated. But is also used especially by public authorities who have to sign a lot of documents, themselves. One of the most common questions that we get about electronic signature is: If I take it on the company and I later change my company's name or I want to use it in another company, as well, what can I do? The answer is very, very simple: your electronic signature is not a signature of your company itself, but it's YOUR signature, your personal signature. When you think about it, when you sign a contract you do not sign the contract as your company, but as the administrator of the company. For example, me, Ruxandra, when I want to sign a contract, I put my name there, not the name of my company. Shortly put, you can use your personal electronic signature to sign any document. It can either be a document for your business or even a private document. For example, if you as an individual would like to have a complaint made to the city hall about the parking spaces, you can do that electronically, using the email and a for electronic signature. Another question that we get very often is: How expensive is the electronic signature? Many people think it is very expensive, because it is a new procedure. Actually, the electronic signature is not that expensive. You can of course search on the internet and see the many providers and their offers. For example, we at our office use an electronic signature that is about 50 euros per year and it's really not a big price to pay when you think about all the money that you save not printing documents and signing them and putting them in scan all over again on the computer or standing in a big line at the public authorities, at banks or whatever. Also, due to recent changes in the legislation, in Romania it is mandatory for all public authorities to accept documents with electronic signature. So, next time when you think about all the lines that you have to stay in, just get you an electronic signature, because it will save you a lot of time and even money in the long run. Also, the electronic signature saves you all the hustle that you have to proof who the person that signed the document was, when you sign a contract for a company that the person who is really signing the contract is indeed the administrator. This is very important: each document from a company , especially a contract, should be signed by the person who power of representation. And this is the administrator or director. And last, but not least, we have seen a rise in the usage of electronic signatures. At the moment when we are filming this video. we have a global pandemic of COVID-19 and many people have to stay indoors for their own safety and the safety of others. So using an object like the electronic signature should really be a way to keep everybody safe. That is about it for today. If you have any questions about the electronic signature or the procedure of signing documents that way, you can leave them in the comment section below. Also, don't forget to follow us on social media. We are very active on Instagram and Facebook. We post content there quite often. You can also find some of our videos here, in the corner, if you want to see more of our content. And up until next time, have a great day. Bye-bye!