Legal and law firms
Verified government ID, a live face match and liveness, and a kept record, for the client you onboard by video call as much as the one across your desk. ShieldID supports your firm's client-identification and verification procedures; it does not replace your professional judgment or your state bar's rules.
Nothing on this page is legal advice. It describes what ShieldID's product does. Requirements for client identification are set by your state bar, applicable state and federal law, and your own counsel.
The problem, in your words
Remote retainers, out-of-province clients and video-call closings are routine now. The identification step has to keep up without becoming a liability of its own.
A new client signs a retainer over video and emails a photo of their driver's license. There is no reliable way to tell, from a JPEG, whether the document is genuine or whether the person on the call is the person on the ID.
A matter opened under someone else's name, or under a real name attached to a fabricated or altered document, is a risk to the firm as well as to the client whose identity was used.
Months or years later, your firm needs to show what identification steps were actually taken and when — not just that a photocopy sits in a folder somewhere.
A worked example
Alder & Voss LLP is a fictional three-lawyer real-estate and corporate practice. A new purchaser client is instructing them entirely by phone and video. Here is one file, start to finish.
What matters most for this
Every check below runs on every verification, on every plan. None of it is an optional extra a firm can skip to save a few dollars.
For file reviews and audits
A client-identification step without a record is a memory, not a file. Every action around a ShieldID verification is entered in an append-only Activity Ledger, enforced by the database: entries can be added, never edited or deleted, not by you and not by us.
How it fits your practice
Pick the one that matches how your firm already opens files.
Send a client a verification link ahead of an intake call, or show a QR code in the boardroom for a client who is present but whose ID you have not yet checked. No app install, and your desktop never needs a camera.
One REST API for a practice-management or client-intake system: create a session, send the link, receive a signed webhook when the result is in. Sandbox sessions are never billed.
If your firm already uses our e-signature sibling product for retainers or closing documents, an identity check can sit alongside that signed record.
Privacy and consent
Nothing on this page is legal advice. Whether client identification is required for a given matter, what your state bar's client-identification rules ask for, and how long a firm must keep identification records, are questions for your own state bar and your firm's counsel.
How this compares
Categories, not vendor names. "Typical enterprise IDV" describes what we found across the identity-verification market broadly; your mileage will vary by vendor.
| Capability | ShieldID | Typical enterprise IDV | Manual checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confirms the ID itself is genuine, not just a legible photocopy | Yes | Usually | No |
| Confirms the client is the person in the photo, live | Yes | Usually | No |
| Works for a client you will never meet in person | Yes | Usually | No |
| Reads an unfamiliar or foreign document instead of refusing it outright | Yes | Rarely | Depends on staff |
| Leaves a searchable, dated record for a file review | Yes | Not offered to the customer | A paper file, if kept |
| Available in English and French | Yes | Depends on the vendor | Depends on staff |
Objections, answered
Straight answers, including where the answer is "check with your own counsel."
We do not say that it does. ShieldID gives you verified government ID, a live face match, liveness detection and a kept record to support your client-identification and verification procedures. What your state bar requires, and whether this meets it, is a question for your own state bar's rules and your professional judgment.
ShieldID gives you a documented, repeatable identity check with a record behind it, evidence you can use inside your own compliance program. Whether it satisfies a specific regulatory requirement for your firm is a question for your compliance counsel, we do not claim a certification that does not exist.
ShieldID reads whatever it can from any document and reports each field's own verdict, rather than refusing a document because its layout is unrecognized — useful for an international or newcomer client where a rigid document list would fail you.
ID images are encrypted at rest and purged automatically on a short timer, seven days by default. The Activity Ledger records who accessed a verification and when; opening the underlying network and device evidence needs a written, logged reason.
The Activity Ledger entry itself has no purge job and persists for the life of the account. The ID image behind it is purged on a short timer, seven days by default; keep your own file note in the meantime if your obligations call for a longer trail on the document itself.
What you see
Your client verifies on their own phone, wherever they are. The result shows what was read from their passport and how each check came out.
Questions
See it on a real file
Sandbox sessions are never billed. Try the flow yourself, then decide whether it fits your intake process.
Not legal advice. Check your own state bar's rules and your firm's counsel before relying on this for client identification.