Over the course of the last 6 months I have worked with 4 law firms on various transactions. Non of them employed digital signature technology. There is of course a cost associated with paper over and above the material itself and the processing time (stamps, enveloping, posting etc.). The cost of lost business resulting from delays in completing contracts. A current transaction I am working on was due to complete on Monday. However, the counterparties claimed not to have received the contracts. Because the lawyers insist on wet signatures, it will take a minimum of three days to re-issue the contracts and collate the signatures. Using couriers was deemed too expensive. In all the transaction will be delayed by a week. For this business, that could translate to £10,000 in lost revenue. I wouldn’t want to quantify the cost that stress causes from these very avoidable delays.