Guides
Mobile notary service standards: a drafting method
A drafting method for mobile notary service standards: sort each statement as a duty, a rule or a preference, then word each kind the way that suits it.
Most written standards fail for the same reason: they mix three different kinds of statement into one document and give them all the same weight. A legal duty, a business rule and a personal preference read identically on the page, and the reader has no way to tell which one they may not depart from.
This page is a drafting method for mobile notary service standards. It sorts the statements first, then words each kind in the way that suits it, and it applies whether the document is for you alone or for someone you send out.
What to take away
- Sort every line as a duty, a rule, or a preference before writing any of them. The sort decides the wording.
- A duty is written by pointing at the statute. Never paraphrase a legal requirement into your own words in a standard.
- A rule needs a number and an owner. A preference needs to be labeled as one, or it will be enforced as a rule and resented.
- The three passages that need exact wording are the waiting allowance, the refusal, and the sentence about not giving advice.
The three kinds
Duties come from your state's notary statute and your commissioning office — in California, for example, the Government Code provisions on notaries public and the Secretary of State who issues the commission. Identification, the journal, the seal, what may be charged for an act, and the limit on giving legal advice. You do not own these and you may not soften them.
Rules are your business decisions. Arrival windows, waiting allowances, cancellation terms, how quickly documents are returned, what gets recorded after a job. You own these entirely and they can change when you decide.
Preferences are how you like things done. Which folder, which phrasing on a confirmation, which order you pack the bag. Useful, and dangerous when they get promoted into rules, because a standard full of preferences trains people to ignore the parts that matter.
Wording each kind
| Kind | How to word it | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Duty | Name the requirement, cite the statute section or handbook page, and say to read it there | Restating the legal test in your own words |
| Rule | A number, a condition, and a named owner | Words like promptly, appropriate, reasonable |
| Preference | Marked as preferred practice, with permission to depart | Presenting it in the same voice as a duty |
The middle row is where most documents fail. Return documents promptly is not a rule. Return documents by the end of the working day, and if that is not possible tell the client before five, is a rule, because you can tell whether it happened.
Wording Duties, Rules, Preferences
Duty
- How to word
- Cite statute or handbook
- What to avoid
- Restating legal test
- Who owns it
- State statute
- Can you soften it
- No
Rule
- How to word
- Number, condition, owner
- What to avoid
- Promptly, appropriate, reasonable
- Who owns it
- Your business
- Can you soften it
- Yes, by decision
Preference
- How to word
- Marked preferred practice
- What to avoid
- Same voice as a duty
- Who owns it
- Your habit
- Can you soften it
- Yes, freely
The drafting sequence
- List every statement you want in the standard, in any order, without editing.
- Mark each one D, R or P. Anything you cannot classify is usually a preference wearing a rule's clothes.
- For every D, find the source and write the citation next to it. If you cannot find the source, it is not a duty.
- For every R, add a number and an owner. If neither is available, it is a preference.
- Delete the preferences you do not actually care about, which is most of them.
- Write out the three hard passages in full, since they are the ones that fail under pressure.
- Give the document a version and a date, and name the one person who may change it.
Seven steps, and step two does most of the work. It is common to start with forty statements and end with six duties, nine rules and four preferences.
Seven-Step Drafting Sequence
- List every statement, unedited
- Mark each D, R or P
- Cite the source for every D
- Add number and owner to R
- Delete preferences you do not care about
- Draft three hard passages word for word
- Add version, date, and one owner
The three passages to get right
The waiting allowance. How long you wait, what happens beyond it, and who may agree to extend. Write the sentence the person says out loud, not the policy behind it.
Three Passages to Write Out
- Waiting allowancehow long, what happens beyond, who extends
- Refusalobservable facts, calm sentence, leave without completing
- Advice limitnot permitted to advise, drafter or attorney can answer
The refusal. The circumstances in which the act does not proceed, phrased as observable facts rather than judgments. A signer who cannot produce identification your state accepts. A signer who does not appear to understand what they are signing. A signer who appears to be under pressure from someone else present. Then the sentence used to say so, calmly, and the instruction to leave without completing.
The advice limit. The exact words used when a signer asks what a document means or which option to choose. Something plain: that you are not permitted to advise on the document and that the drafter, the lender or an attorney can answer it. Written down, it gets said. Left to the moment, it comes out as an apology and then as an explanation, which is the thing it was meant to prevent.
What a standard must not do
It must not restate your state's law in friendlier words. A standard that says identification must be current and government-issued has quietly created a rule that may not match your statute, and the person reading it will follow the standard.
What a Standard Must Not Do
- Restate state law in friendlier words
- Promise anything to clients unchecked
- Allocate responsibility for a notarial act
It must not promise anything to clients that has not been checked. A published standard is an advertising claim about your service, and claims have to be supportable before they are made. The same applies to how customer feedback is gathered and displayed, which the Federal Trade Commission covers in its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
And it must not try to allocate responsibility for a notarial act. Each act belongs to the notary who performed it, under their own commission, and no internal document changes that.
Keeping it alive
A standard with no review date becomes wrong quietly. Set two triggers.
Two Review Triggers
- Once a quarterCheck commissioning office and re-read duty lines
- Any job failureReview the document within the week
- AlwaysKeep the versions
A calendar trigger, once a quarter, to check the commissioning office for anything that changed and to re-read the duty lines against the current handbook.
An event trigger: any time a job fails in a way the standard did not anticipate, the document gets looked at within the week. That is where most genuine improvements come from, and most of those failures are found on the page rather than in a conversation.
Keep the versions. Which standard was in force on a given date is a question that eventually gets asked, and business records of this kind are exactly what the IRS describes keeping in its records a business should keep guidance and in Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records.
Writing for someone who is not you
A standard written for yourself is full of things you know without reading. Handed to a second person, it fails at every unstated judgment.
Testing the Document on Someone Else
Give it to someone and ask what they would do
They answer as you would
They hesitate or answer differently
Test it the cheap way: give it to someone and ask them to tell you what they would do in three specific situations you have actually faced. Where they hesitate, the document is thin. Where they give an answer you would not give, the document is wrong.
The person performing an act does so under their own commission and carries their own responsibility to the state. Your standard sets the service, training and assignment rules; it cannot set their duty.
That distinction is what a second commissioned notary changes. Before you rely on a candidate, test them against the document on real work rather than on an interview.
Where the standard has to be rewritten
Two situations force a rewrite rather than an edit. Adding a service type, because a new category brings duties you have not classified yet. And working in a different state, because the duty half of the document belongs to a jurisdiction and does not travel. The second of those is the substance of what expansion actually involves.
What the standard is really trying to achieve is a document the receiving party accepts, and acceptance is the only measure that matters.
Common questions
How long should the document be?
Short enough to be read before a shift. Six duties, ten rules and the three drafted passages will fit on a few pages and cover almost everything.
Should clients see it?
Show them the rules that affect them: windows, waiting, cancellation, turnaround. Keep the internal parts internal, and only publish what you can actually deliver.
Who should own it?
One named person, who is usually the owner in a small operation. Shared ownership of a standard means nobody updates it.
What if my state changes a requirement mid-term?
Change the duty line the week you learn of it and note the date. That is why duties carry citations rather than paraphrases: the citation is what you re-check.
