Wet signature

The term exists because electronic alternatives needed something to contrast with. For five thousand years of contract history a signature meant ink, and the law built rituals around it: originals, counterparts, witnesses, notary stamps. Since 2000 in the US (ESIGN) and 2016 across the EU (eIDAS), the default has flipped for business documents, with electronic signatures carrying equal legal weight in almost every commercial context.

Where wet ink is still required

The short list, in most US states: wills, codicils, and testamentary trusts; many family-law documents (adoption, divorce settlements); court orders and certain official filings; and some documents requiring notarization, although remote online notarization keeps shrinking that category. A few jurisdictions still want wet ink for specific real-estate instruments. Everything else, including NDAs, waivers, leases applications, service agreements, and employment paperwork, can be signed electronically.

The irony of evidentiary weight

A wet signature on paper is actually weak evidence: it proves someone moved a pen, with no timestamp, no identity attribution, no record of what version they saw, and handwriting experts disagreeing for a living. A well-captured electronic signature carries IP, timestamps, consent records, a hash of the exact content, and tamper evidence. In a dispute, the e-signature file is usually the stronger exhibit.

If you're migrating from paper

The practical path: keep wet ink for the excluded categories above, move everything routine to electronic, and pick a tool whose audit trail travels inside the signed PDF rather than living in a vendor dashboard. Sign Sail's free tier (2 forms, 25 submissions a month, signatures included) is a low-risk way to test the switch on one document type, like your waiver or intake form.