Court-admissible eSignatures for Australian law firms

Yes. The Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (Cth) gives electronic signatures the same legal effect as wet-ink signatures for the vast majority of legal documents. Each state has equivalent legislation (Electronic Transactions Act 2000 NSW, 2003 VIC, 2001 QLD, etc.). Court-admissibility under the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) is supported by the audit trail SignAndGo embeds with every signature: timestamps, IP geolocation, signer identity verification, and a tamper-evident certificate.

A small list, mostly related to wills and powers of attorney in some states. The ETA 1999 excludes wills, codicils, and certain testamentary instruments; some statutory declarations; and documents requiring particular forms of attestation by a Justice of the Peace. Most commercial contracts, deeds, settlement agreements, costs agreements, NDAs, and shareholder agreements ARE valid electronically. Always check the specific instrument and your jurisdiction. SignAndGo's audit trail and witness flow handle the remaining attestation requirements for deeds in NSW/VIC/QLD.

Yes. SignAndGo's witnessing flow lets you add witnesses as designated parties with their own unique signing tokens and witness fields. Witnesses sign AFTER the primary signer (sequential mode enforced), satisfying the temporal requirement under most state Conveyancing Acts. Each party receives their own audit trail entry, geolocation capture, and timestamped certificate, so the witnessing chain is independently verifiable in court.

Yes. The Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) accepts electronic records as documentary evidence under sections 47-51, provided their authenticity can be demonstrated. SignAndGo records signer email verification, IP address with geolocation, precise UTC and local timestamps for every action, browser fingerprint, and a SAG-XXXXXXXX verification ID that's HMAC-signed against the envelope contents. The certificate is embedded in the signed PDF itself, making the chain of custody self-contained for any court submission.

Exclusively in Sydney, Australia (australia-southeast1 GCP region). No data leaves Australian sovereign infrastructure. This is a hard constraint, not a configuration option. Compliant with Australian Privacy Principles (APP1-13) and the data-residency obligations many state Law Societies impose for handling client matter information. Most US-based competitors store data in US-East or US-West and merely 'support' AU storage on enterprise tiers.

Three concrete differences. (1) Data residency: SignAndGo is Sydney-exclusive; DocuSign/Adobe Sign are US-based with optional AU regions on enterprise tiers; Annature is AU-based. (2) Witnessing UX: SignAndGo has a dedicated witness flow with sequential timing; competitors require workarounds. (3) AUD-native pricing with no annual lock-in, and overage billed per-envelope rather than forcing a tier upgrade. Detailed comparison table below.

Yes. The platform supports legal documents up to 250MB on Business plans (500MB on Enterprise), backed by HTTP Range-request streaming so signers' browsers fetch only the page they're viewing — not the whole 200MB file upfront. Field placement on long documents is assisted by an AI auto-detect feature that scans every page for signature anchors. For depositions and large litigation bundles specifically: tested and validated up to 1000 pages.

Yes. The platform ships with 14 Australian legal templates (NDAs, employment contracts, independent contractor agreements, residential and commercial leases, service agreements, loan agreements, partnership agreements, powers of attorney, deeds of release, shareholders agreements, consultancy agreements, confidentiality deeds, agency agreements). Firms can also upload and save their OWN templates — engagement letters, costs agreements, retainer schedules — for one-click reuse with role-based recipient mapping (Signer 1, Signer 2, etc.) so the template adapts to each matter's parties.

Signed PDFs are stored encrypted in Sydney GCS with a hash-chained audit log. Each envelope has a permanent verification URL (signandgo.com.au/verify) where anyone with the SAG verification ID can confirm the document's authenticity for as long as your matter file requires. For firms running ActionStep, LEAP, or Smokeball: download the signed PDF + certificate via the partner API and attach to your matter automatically — full API documentation available.

Yes. The signing page has an explicit Decline button (toggleable per workspace; some firms hide it for internal use). When a signer declines, the envelope is marked declined, the audit trail records the decision with timestamp and IP, and the sender is notified automatically. This is critical for legal records — a declined envelope is not a deleted envelope; the evidence of refusal is preserved.

The Business plan is $99/month flat, includes up to 10 team members and 200 envelopes/month. A 5-partner firm fits comfortably in one Business subscription — all five partners plus up to five paralegals or admin staff can be team members under that single $99. Recipients who sign documents are not team members and are never charged. If the firm uses more than 200 envelopes in a month, top up in advance by buying a 30-envelope pack for $21 (or larger packs as needed) — same as how SMS credits work. Firms regularly running well above 200/month move to Enterprise for custom pricing.

Yes. The Free plan allows 3 envelopes per month indefinitely — enough to test the workflow with your own NDAs or engagement letters. No credit card required to start. If you want to test under load, the 14-day Business trial includes 50 envelopes and unlimited SMS signing notifications, also no credit card.