“What is Legal Proof? An Email Record that Serves as an Evidence!”

What is “Legal Proof”? Optimize! Panelists Share a Decade of Use in Courts

In the early 2000’s, RPost coined the term “Legal Proof®” to describe what one received when they sent a Registered Email™ message. There is no such thing as “Illegal Proof”, so what could “Legal Proof®” really represent?

We defined “Legal Proof®” as an email record that can serve as third-party evidence of the uniform timestamp of email sending, delivery, opening, and/or failure with cryptographically associated evidence of the message content, attachment content, and the forensic-level transmission logs. Importantly, this evidence can be authenticated on demand by any party who holds the e-record, without any central repository or other storage requirements.

For two decades, for every Registered Email™ message sent, a Registered Receipt™ email was returned to the sender, serving as their “Legal Proof” record in case there is a future need to support a position regarding who said what when by email.

In the early days of the patented Registered Email™ service by RPost®, lawyers would often rightly ask, “Will the Registered Receipt™ email record hold up in court? Will it give us the courtroom edge?”

Legal analyses aside (and there have been many that affirm the court admissibility and veracity of the Registered Receipt™ authentication “Legal Proof” record — read some here if interested), going beyond litigator use cases (listen to Chicago lawyer’s story or about use in New York Federal Court that awarded a $100 million default judgement), at Optimize! FinTech, we heard RPost customers explain in detail how they have used the Registered Receipt™ email as a “Legal Proof” record. This is a record that, as reported in these discussions, the courtrooms in the United States and in the United Kingdom relied on to support their favorable judgements for Registered Email™ users.

For context, at Optimize! eSign & E-Security, RPost’s user conference, one US Federal Government financial regulator litigation support division explained how the Registered Receipt™ email record has been used, and is routinely used, as a Federal Court acceptable means to prove service of government subpoenas. It has been used in Federal Courts around the United States for this purpose for more a decade.

But what is “Legal Proof” really? When we comb through all of the Registered Email™ service customer success stories provided over the years (and many shared at Optimize! — click here to re-live), most who use the Registered Email service never have to get to court. The fact that they have the Registered Receipt™ email record (and after they forward it to the other party) makes it clear to all involved that the sender of the Registered Email™ message would have the upper hand in any question about who said what to whom, and when.

One common theme: many of those customers who send Registered Email™ messages reported that its use provides them “peace of mind”. If there is a future question, they know they have a record that will substantiate their position…a record that will provide them the edge in court (if needed).

Thus, use of the Registered Email™ service returns a “Legal Proof” record, or perhaps expressed differently, it returns, “Peace of Mind”.

For those who would like to install the RMail® Registered Email™ service inside Outlook, Gmail, Salesforce, or use the RMail online web app free, click here.

RMail®, Registered Email™, Registered Receipt™ and Legal Proof® are registered and unregistered trademarks owned by RPost Communications.

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