Washington State adopts the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act

A little piece of good news that may have gotten overshadowed by current events — earlier this year the Washington State legislature passed, and Governor Inslee signed into law, a state version of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA).

As just a bit of background, Washington State was one of the first states to implement laws recognizing the electronic or digital signatures back in the late 1990s. But as time went on, and even broader recognition of electronic transactions became the norm — including the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act proposed by the Uniform Law Commission in 1999, and the Federal ESIGN Act of 2000 — Washington has lagged behind. Since 1999, nearly all other states adopted their own versions of the UETA, yet Washington did not.

All that has now changed, and Washington’s UETA will become effective on June 11, 2020!

The UETA comes with many advantages, including a broad and comprehensive system for recognizing the validity of electronic signatures that matches the laws of nearly every other state across the country.

This is especially good news for us as personal injury attorneys, since so much of what we do involves people signing documents or attesting to statements. Although this new law does not immediately change the practice of litigation (the courts still have the option of whether and to what extent to accept electronic signatures), it is certainly a positive step forward.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash