Identity verification for law firms

Client identification is part of many US law firms' own risk and compliance practice, though there is no single nationwide rule. This guide describes how identity verification fits into that work at a practical level. It is not legal advice: whether identification is required for a given matter, and what your state bar's rules of professional conduct ask for, are questions for your own state bar and your firm's counsel.

The context, in plain terms

Bar and ethics rules on client identification vary by state, set by each state's own bar and rules of professional conduct rather than a single federal standard. Historically, that meant an in-person meeting and a photocopied ID. Remote client verification, confirming identity without a meeting, is increasingly common, but the underlying obligation to actually verify the client, and to document how you did it, does not go away just because the meeting moved online.

Where identity verification fits

ShieldID reads a government-issued ID front and back, a driver's license, state ID or passport, cross-checks the barcode or the passport's machine-readable zone against the printed fields, and matches a live selfie to the document photo through a guided liveness challenge. The output is a set of per-field verdicts and evidence, not a single accept or reject decision: your firm still makes the identification determination, informed by what the checks found, exactly as it would review a photocopy today, only with more signal behind it.

• A document check that reads and cross-checks the ID rather than eyeballing a scan.
• A liveness challenge and face match, so the client is confirmed to be present, not just a photo of an ID on its own.
• A record of the check, entered in the Activity Ledger when accessed through a Trust Ledger integration, coming soon for a standalone ShieldID API account, that you can point to later if the identification is questioned.
• English and French support for client-facing verification, useful for a firm with francophone clients.

What we do not claim

ShieldID does not determine whether your specific identification method satisfies your state bar's rules of professional conduct for a given matter; that determination belongs to your firm and its own legal judgment. Bar and ethics rules vary by state, and we do not hold, or claim, any certification that a state bar has approved this method. What the product can do is give you a documented, repeatable check and a record of it, useful input to a decision your firm still makes and remains responsible for.

Getting started

A sandbox session, never billed, lets your firm see exactly what the applicant experiences and what the result looks like before it touches a real file. From there, a hosted verification link can be sent to a client the same way you'd send a document for e-signature.