subject: What Security Steps Do Couriers Of Legal Materials Take? [print this page] Courier services move all types of goods and documents. It is very common for a courier company to move legal documents between law firms, businesses, banks and more. However, because legal documents can be so much more important and valuable than the other types of documents which a courier company might ship, there is sometimes an option for some additional security when making this type of shipment.
When a legal document is being delivered, it is very important that it does not get lost. It is also very important that no one who is not authorized looks at the information contained in the document. While someone seeing the information might prove harmless in the end, the fact is that much of the information which is contained in legal documents is legally confidential. This means that there is a large liability risk when it comes to the potential of that information being looked at by the wrong people. This is why courier companies offer services that are designed to keep the wrong people from seeing documents, and which should prevent a legal document from ever getting lost.
The main service that courier companies offer that provides this type of security is called in-hand courier service. Normally, when people order high security service for the delivery of legal documents, this is what they are referring to. The advantage of this type of service is that it protects against both of the types of problems which legal document deliveries can be subject too.
An in-hand courier is the only courier who will touch a document on a given delivery. Normally, if a document is lost and can't be tracked down, it is because it wasn't logged properly when it changes hands between couriers. By eliminating any handoffs or breaks in the chain of custody, this is completely avoided.
This service is equally effective at ensuring that the information in the document never gets looked at by the wrong person. First of all, because the document is never out of the site of the courier, no other person will ever have a chance to look at it. If traveling by air, the courier will even take the document with them as carryon baggage. The courier themselves will be bound by a confidentiality agreement, and would not look anyway, as there is clear accountability if any of the information were to become released due to the unbroken chain of custody of the document.
