Paralegal Mistake #3: Notarize Documents Without Proper Identification
Notarize Documents Without Proper Identification
There are normally two choices when notarizing a document:
- If the person signing the document is unknown to the assistant, an official I.D. must be presented; or
- If the person signing the document is personally known to the assistant, no identification is needed.
There have been times in my paralegal career where fellow staff members alerted me to a particular attorney’s expectation that I would be required to notarize a client’s signature without proper identification.
Of course, I wouldn’t follow that course of action.
My solution was to simply advise the attorney ahead of time that I made it a practice to abide by the rules in my state governing notary publics. I simply drew a line and was never asked to cross it.
