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Topic· 8 essays

Courts and fiduciary identity

Trust accounts, court orders and notarial acts all rest on documents a verifier cannot test. These essays cover disbursement authority, filing provenance and evidence collection.

Start here Receipts: evidence that survives is the reference piece behind this topic.

All 8 essays

Compliance

Hidden instructions in court filings: document provenance when the reader is an AI

Courts have found concealed instructions in filed documents aimed at AI-assisted review. A filing is now read by two audiences.
Compliance

The phantom client and the trust account: the fraud your cyber policy does not cover

State bars warned in 2026 about schemes where a fraudster plays both sides of a matter to move money through a firm's trust account.
Compliance

The fake court order: verifying judicial documents without calling the clerk

Banks, registrars and platforms act on court orders daily. Verification is visual — a caption, a seal image, a signature block — and that is all.
Compliance

Filed under your bar number: the attorney who did not file

Paralegals, docketing clerks and outsourced filing services submit documents using attorneys' e-filing credentials.
Compliance

Chain of custody for electronic evidence: the declaration nobody can test

Federal Rules of Evidence 902(13) and 902(14) let electronic records self-authenticate through a certification by a qualified person.
Compliance

Settlement disbursement: the claimant who never authorized the payout address

Claim verification and payment instruction are separate events months apart, and the instruction is accepted on the strength of a claim number.
Compliance

The notary's journal is the evidence, and it lives on a vendor's server

A notarial act must be provable for decades. The recording and journal entry that prove it sit on a vendor's server under a commercial contract.
Compliance

Client intake as an AML control: verifying the human behind the engagement letter

Engagement letters are signed by whoever holds the email address. For matters moving funds, the firm's own intake is the weakest AML control.

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