Notary Compliance Across 50 States
Assisting notaries to upload required documentation to stay compliant to be a RON (Remote online notary)
Impact
States can now use DocuSign for notarization.
On day one, 30 states
Role / Team
1 Designer (Me)
3 Engineers
1 PM
1 Lawyer
I owned the compliance portion of this project
Timeline
1 week discovery
2 weeks of alignment
1 week of design
Full case study available during portfolio presentation
Introduction
DocuSign is a online eSignature platform for all sorts of users. The most common industries include HR, real estate, and businesses that need documents signed.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, DocuSign created a notary team to bring the notarization process online for our enterprise customers.
DocuSign was going to host the notary platform, however DocuSign was not interested in hiring their notaries because of legal risks.
Problems
People can't notarize online - With COVID-19, enterprise customer's clients couldn't get documents notarized as easily. Such as 401k disbursements.
State regulations & requirements - Different states have different regulations for a person to be a RON (Remote online notary). Regulations consisted of providing different documents to proof you are a notary.
Notary compliance - Trying to stay compliant as a RON (Remote online notary) was not easy since regulations were changing during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Opportunities
User opportunities (Why do users care?)
Customer's clients can get documents notarized without going into an office with COVID-19 restrictions.
Notaries can understand what documents to provide to stay compliant with their states.
Business Opportunities (What's in it for Dozuki?)
DocuSign can generate revenue and/or reduce churn for enterprise clients who do a lot of notarizations.
Most common industries include:
- Real estate
- Financial services
- Legal & government
- Healthcare
- Insurance
Legal Landscape of RON
What was happening during this time?
This project was completed in 2022, at which point not all states had authorized remote online notarization (RON).
However, our platform needed to be designed to scale - supporting both the initial 30 states that had adopted RON and the remaining 20 that would follow. Notably, California, one of the highest-volume states, authorized RON with implementation taking effect between 2024 and 2025.
Designs
First time logged in
Start creating a "commission" - required by law - given by DocuSign
Commission created, profile complete
"Commission" is expiring soon
Notification that their commission is expiring soon
A way for notaries to add signers to the existing eSign experience
1 notary and N signers
Learnings & Results
One key learning from trying to ship this product while RON regulations were still being passed was the importance of identifying regulatory patterns across states.
By doing so, I was able to design a holistic solution that could support both the initial 30 states and scale to accommodate the remaining 20 as they came online.