A distinction exists between enrolling with the RealLegal Signature Service and actually signing transcripts electronically.
You can enroll with the service and then administer an account, set up billing, and so forth, but you cannot sign transcripts until you complete and sign the Reporter/Participant Enrollment Form, have your signature notarized, and then scan the form and return it to: rl-esignatures@thomsonreuters.com . Your handwritten signature will be made available via the E-Transcript Signature service.
Signing transcripts electronically has legal ramifications, therefore, RealLegal keeps the documentation for all enrollees in the program to ensure that should issues arise, written documentation exists for all participants in the RealLegal Signature service.
You need two software tools to affix an E-Transcript Signature to a RealLegal E-Transcript: The RealLegal E-Signature service and E-Transcript Manager. Here is how it works:
Step 1: You enroll for the E-Signature service by completing and signing the Reporter/Participant Enrollment Form, having your signature notarized, and then scanning the form and returning it to: rl-esignatures@thomsonreuters.com . Your handwritten signature will be made available via the E-Transcript Signature service.
Step 2: From within E-Transcript Manager, you click a transcript and then select Transcript à Sign E-Transcript from the menu bar, enter your user name and password, click a button, and the transcript is signed electronically.
In RealLegal E-Transcript Manager, you can sign a transcript more than once, and you can designate multiple recipients for a transcript. For example, you may need to provide transcripts for the defendant's and plaintiff's attorneys. Signing a transcript multiple times and designating a recipient for each signed transcript benefits your customers because they have transcripts signed specifically for them, and it protects you because it makes it difficult for someone who is not a designated recipient to present the transcript to the court.
However, because a dialog box lists who has received the transcript whenever someone opens the transcript, all parties in the case know who else has received the transcript. If that is an issue, you may want to leave the recipient field blank, sign the transcript only once, and then mail it to whoever needs it.
Use the following procedure to sign a transcript multiple times:
Sign the transcript as described above. Be sure to type the first recipient's name in the Recipient field.
After you have signed the transcript, click the transcript in E-Transcript Manager, and select Transcript à Sign E-Transcript from the menu bar. A message states that you are re-signing a transcript and that any existing signatures will be preserved.
Click the OK button. The Sign Transcript dialog box displays.
Complete the fields on the dialog box. Be sure to type the second recipient's name in the Recipient field.
Click the Sign button. E-Transcript Manager signs the file electronically.
If there are more than two recipients, repeat Steps 2 through 5 for each additional recipient of the transcript.
Important: Notify your customers that they will receive an E-Transcript designated for multiple recipients and when they will open the file, a prompt will display asking them to choose the correct name. The name they choose will determine the recipient name that prints on the signed transcript.
To learn more about E-Transcript Manager, go to the RealLegal website: http://www.reallegal.com/etranscript_CR.asp