Paperless office & L of E

Right so with a move of office happening in August I have decided to be paperless before the move.
All is going well and made some good progress today.
I have a question regarding 'Letters of Engagement' though. As they contain the clients signature and potentially may need to be used in a court of law do I need to keep the original?
Not such a problem if I do but I don't want to destroy originals if it's going to come back and haunt me.
May be one for the AAT to give a definitive answer on though?
All is going well and made some good progress today.
I have a question regarding 'Letters of Engagement' though. As they contain the clients signature and potentially may need to be used in a court of law do I need to keep the original?
Not such a problem if I do but I don't want to destroy originals if it's going to come back and haunt me.
May be one for the AAT to give a definitive answer on though?
Regards,
Burg
Burg
0
Comments
We are just starting and are considering the same issue, because each partner is working from a separate place we have a remote server there is a need for each one of us to be able to access practice and client files, wherever we are.
I am creating L'soE in word and then publishing them as pdf's before sending them to clients. The client will agree the agreement by e-mail and this will be on the server for each one of us to see.
As far as I am concerned the agreement in an unchangeable format plus the e-mails from us and from the client creates an enforceable contract. The law recognises this as an electronic signature as long as you can directly associate the pdf with the e-mails.
What i would not do is get rid of any existing paper agreements because I think it will come back and bite you one day. Why not scan in the original and get an e-mail from the client agreeing that this is the original agreement they put their signature to.
Ian
I have been in touch with the AAT on this issue today. The suggestions put forward by them are somewhat in-line with yours and my initial thoughts.
Basically that to keep them in an un-editable format such as a pdf (which I do) and keep emails relating to the agreement of the terms.
The only additional possibilities they suggested were adding the fact that the agreement will be kept electronically and that a electronic signature or a copy of a hand written signature will be used as the agreement to the terms and will be allowable as a signature should a disagreement arise.
They advised against destroying any current L of E's that are on paper and that if I wished for them to be in an electronic format to get the client to agree either that it can be converted or to a new agreement.
Thanks for the response though, most helpful.
Burg
Genuis.
Wish we'd thought of this before we just issued brand new LoEs to all our clients
Ah well, you live and learn!
Off my tangent for a minute, yes I think electronic is fine but the above is even better.