I’m a paralegal working at a non profit which provides free civil law advice to low income clients. I’m a licensed and insured notary, though I have not yet used this professionally. Due to covid, our attorneys are now providing legal advice via Zoom. I do the initial intake of each client over the phone. Part of this process is having the client agree to/“sign” our client user agreement, which we’ve been doing using “Docusign.” It can be difficult to get the clients to go through the Docusign process (the clients are mostly very poor, many are homeless and have quite troubled lives). The client agreement is fairly short, mostly just “boilerplate.” I’m wondering if there’s some legally binding way that I could simply read the agreement to the clients and have them verbally agree to the terms, eliminating the Docusign step. Thanks for any input. David
I’m very surprised to have this question posed by a Paralegal – working at an attorney’s office. I’m from Philadelphia and you know what they say about “Philadelphia lawyers”
Get EVERYTHING in writing. DocuSign is your friend.
It’s not that straightforward. Of course signed is better, but as I said in my post, much of our client base is extremely limited by life issues which are seldom seen in a paid practice. That’s why they come to us. We’re not talking about signing away your property deed or trust fund, just acknowledging the clinic’s boilerplate which is very unlikely to ever be of issue. I’m just trying to get some idea of the level at which a notary can “certify” a verbal signature over the phone. All things considered, I’d say Docusign is only marginally more “secure” than a verbal telephone agreement.
Going to go out on a limb here and say “You can’t!” - and in all honesty, this is a question you should be asking your attorney-boss and all of you take it up with DocuSign. But, I know when I use online services I have to click on a box that says I Agree to the Terms of Service. Not sure how you can incorporate that.
Perhaps discuss with your office - have you go visit these people to either get paper agreements signed or get their electronic signature on an iPad? Just a thought.
You should to speak with an attorney about this. Each State has defined what practicing law means. In some States Paralegals can do things once handled only by attorneys, but things that can’t be handled by the public. If you err it cost you both your Notary Commission and your Paralegal License.