On June 30, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act," or the E-Sign Act, which, together with the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, or UETA, establishes that electronic signatures may not be denied legal effect solely because they are in electronic form.
For employers, this means no longer having to track down and obtain — and then retain — hundreds or thousands of traditional wet signatures. Indeed, many employers have completely digitized their new employee onboarding process, human resource document systems, and have expanded into using electronic signatures for employment agreements — including noncompetes and arbitration. As the E-Sign Act reaches the age of maturity after being tested in the courts, and as more employers adopt or broaden their use of electronic signatures, now is a good time to review the basic requirements and lessons learned from the developing case law.