Courts that operate in closed communities could probably do business without any form of signatures. For courts with a bar, however, adding authentication as a transparent function in the background will encourage the spread of electronic communication from past uses of messages among friends to new fields in business and government. There are a number of software programs to accomplish this. They do not use digital signatures to verify the sender's identity. The benefit is knowing the document was not altered in transit to the court.
Encryption is available to keep documents sealed that are in electronic format.
The software for encryption is becoming easier to use and the latest versions of email software offer it as a built in feature. Encryption can be applied to any document, with passwords, pen on electronic pad and digital signatures. Applied to case files, a juvenile dependency case that has a confidential status could utilize electronic filing. Lawyers could use encryption to protect documents sent via email to the clerk's office. The market has yet to provide lawyers with a digital signature infrastructure suitable for court documents.