[slickpoppa]

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Lawyers,

Here's a question. Perhaps a silly one, but one I've wondered about a lot.

I sign LOTS of signature pages. In these cases I'm generally sent a bunch of docs w/ "Sign Here" stickies on them and then I send back the signature page only. I usually actually read what I'm sent, so I know what I'm signing. But what's to keep someone from substituting the middle pages after I send it back? And at that point it just becomes my word against theirs in terms of what I actually read and signed.

I guess this can be addressed to a degree by having to initial every page. And in most of these cases, there are lots of parties involved. Anyhow, I guess what I'm asking is, in the case of less formal contracts when you have a few pages that you're doing with another individual, are there things you should be making sure to do in case there's a dispute - like at least initialing every page? Or more?

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I'm not sure if this is what you were saying, but the most important thing is to get the OTHER party to initial each page. You initialing every page doesn't prevent the other party from producing their own version of the middle pages and simply claiming that you didn't initial every page and that your copy of the contract is the forgery.

An even more secure way to protect yourself from forgery would be to get the signature page notarized and bind all the pages of the contract together so someone can't just insert a phony middle page or claim that a fake page was inserted. Thats probably not necessary though with most people you deal with.

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Having the other party initial all the pages won't work!

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It's not ironclad of course, but do you care to elaborate on that?