The Illinois Supreme Court tidies up standards for electronic signatures in court proceedings.

Revised electronic signature standards for Illinois courts, announced in late August, affirm that the Uniform Electronic Transfer Act (UETA) is the primary source of authority on what counts as a valid digital signature for court administrative purposes.

Previously, in 2021, the UETA replaced the Illinois Electronic Commerce Security Act of 1999. But there also were standards introduced as workarounds during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new standards announced this August essentially reestablished the UETA as the guiding law. The revised standards were written by the Supreme Court’s e-Business Policy Advisory Board. The Illinois State Bar Association provided feedback that the board incorporated into a final draft that the Court enacted on August 30.

Read the Illinois Supreme Court order (M.R. 32361) and an outline of the standards and the full text of the UETA.

“Overall, our intent was to let the UETA be the primary source of authority about what does or doesn’t constitute a ‘signature’ in judicial proceedings,” says advisory board member Aaron Brooks, who wrote the initial draft of the revised standards. The board then developed it into a final draft, which was submitted to ISBA committees and section councils for review and comment. “We received comments from a couple of groups and used those comments to create the final rule,” says Brooks, chief information security officer for the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and of counsel to HolmstromKennedyPC in Rockford. Brooks also is chair of the ISBA Standing Committee on Artificial Intelligence & the Practice of Law, and a member of the ISBA Standing Committee on Legal Technology.

“The new rule is directed entirely at the administrative process of the courts and does not apply at all to substantive records associated with matters before a court,” Brooks says. “So, for example, the rule validates an electronically signed pleading but has no effect on an electronically signed contract that is attached to that pleading. The latter would be interpreted directly under UETA and the general rules of contract validity and authentication of evidence.”

The revised standards state that electronic signatures may be used so long as they are unique to the person making the signature, placed under the control or direction of the signee, and authorized by the signee if the signature is used by another person. According to the UETA, an electronic signature is defined as “an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to or logically associated with a record or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.”

According to M.R. 32361, individual circuit courts may adopt additional electronic-signature requirements. But such requirements must be approved by the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts and be consistent with the revised standards. The revised standards also specify that in “the event of a conflict between these Standards and the rules governing e-filing as approved by the Supreme Court, the provisions of the latter shall control.”

“I think this is an example of the Illinois Courts diligently keeping pace with changes in both technology and law,” says Illinois Appellate Justice Eugene Doherty, who chairs the Illinois Supreme Court e-Business Policy Advisory Board.

Pete Sherman is managing editor of the Illinois Bar Journal.
psherman@isba.org