Reggie Davis has decades of experience as a general counsel in the tech industry and now serves as the general counsel and chief legal officer of DocuSign, a company that provides e-signature solutions. Under Davis' leadership, DocuSign has grown tremendously to have over 55 million users, $500 million in funding, and operations in 43 languages across 189 countries. Davis ensures that DocuSign acts with the utmost focus on legality and security while driving digital transformation for its diverse customer base.

1. 106 / Sync Issue 006
LEAD
DocuSign general counsel Reggie Davis draws from decades of
experience to guide the young, influential legal tech company
as it becomes a leader in secure online signatures
By Tina Vasquez
Only a couple of years ago, finalizing a multination-
al deal took a matter of months, and it required an
inordinate amount of time, money, and energy spent
on printing, faxing, scanning, and overnighting pages
upon pages of documents to be signed. The process was
only lengthened by every additional individual signa-
ture needed.
The San Francisco and Seattle-based company Docu-
Sign is striving to not only eliminate this process entire-
ly, but to do so while also “driving digital transparency,”
according to its general counsel and chief legal officer,
Reggie Davis.
The company invented an “e-signature solution”
that enables users to securely sign and manage docu-
ments online from any device. Digital Transaction Man-
agement (DTM) is an emerging cloud-based service that
isn’t specific to DocuSign, but the very young company
has quickly become known for setting its global stan-
dard.
DocuSign began as a US enterprise focusing pri-
marily on real-estate business. Now, it has an estimat-
ed 55 million users, $500 million in venture funding,
and an ever-expanding global footprint, including the
2014 acquisition of the Brazilian digital-signature firm
Comprova.
Given that the documents signed through DocuSign
are legally binding, the company’s foreign expansion
into forty-three languages and 189 countries has created
unique challenges for Davis and his team. “The overar-
ching task we’re trying to accomplish is creating a global
trust network,” he says. “Everything we do is built on
legality and security and almost obsessively acting in
the best interests of our customers on both fronts. We’re
trying to drive digital transformation for an incredibly
varied customer base, the depth and breadth of which is
still impressive to me.”
“It is literally across all industries,” Davis says. “We
must learn all of the challenges they’re up against and
make it our business to address them.”
From start to finish, DocuSign makes legal processes
accessible and transparent to all involved. Not only is
the process quicker, but information on who created the
documents, when they were created, who signed them,
and when they were signed is instantly available to all
Is Your Signature
Safe When You
Sign on the
Electronic Line?

2. Sync / 107sync-magazine.com
LEAD
Reggie Davis
DocuSign
General Counsel
& Chief Legal
Officer “Everything we do is built
on legality and security and
almost obsessively acting
in the best interests of our
customers on both fronts.”
parties involved. The entire transaction history is there,
in black and white, and that’s something traditional
means like paper can’t offer.
“Not only is it a more transparent way of doing
business, but it’s a more secure way of doing business,”
Davis says. “This isn’t just for multinational companies,
either. Think of the benefits for a legal department or
a company’s HR department. If a company has a focus
on or a need for compliance, nothing is better than the
approach offered by DocuSign.”
Davis’s career history is prolific, with roles as gen-
eral counsel at both Yahoo and Zynga before his time
at DocuSign. In the tech world, moving to a smaller
company doesn’t mean a step backward. Davis has the
opportunity to be with the company as it’s in the midst
of explosive growth: on the brink of an initial public of-
fering and, as of October 2015, entered into a strategic
sales partnership with technology giant (and DocuSign
investor) Dell.
PhotobySamAttal

3. 108 / Sync Issue 006
LEAD
Davis joined DocuSign after
deciding to a take a year off, six
months of which were spent back-
packing around the globe with his
wife and four sons. He was already
well accustomed to applying his le-
gal expertise in the tech industry,
but the folks at DocuSign weren’t
at all accustomed to a general coun-
sel with such a unique approach to
addressing risk. Davis only brings
a potential issue to the attention
of need-to-know parties when it’s,
well, attention-worthy.
“Lots of people sue lots of com-
panies for lots of things,” Davis
says. “If I think something is a very
critical issue, I’ll bring it up. If it
doesn’t seem critical to me, I won’t
bring it up. If you’re on everyone’s
back about every little issue that
arises, how do they know when to
take a legitimate risk seriously? It’s
an approach that works for me. It
requires a lot of trust that I know
what I’m doing, but DocuSign trusts
that I do.”
That’s not to say that being gen-
eral counsel means knowing every-
thing—it doesn’t, and Davis will be
the first to say that. He works among
the best and brightest, both on his
legal team and within DocuSign
broadly. Being an effective gener-
al counsel, he says, requires being
transparent about what you don’t
know.
“It’s a blessing and a curse to be
around ultra-smart engineers who
don’t suffer fools easily,” Davis says
with a laugh. “It’s basically my job
to give very smart people advice,
and that can be hard when they
know things about the technology
that I don’t. So much about this job
is helping people buy in to your
approach and being completely
prepared to honestly answer all of
their questions. You just have to put
in the time and do the work. That’s
what being a good general counsel
is about.”
Congratulations to
our friend
REGGIE DAVIS,
General Counsel and
Chief Legal Officer
of DocuSign, on being
recognized by
Sync Magazine as a
legal industry leader
and pioneer.
Reggie, you have proven
yourself time and time again
as a trusted counselor who gives
sage legal and business advice
to your executive team;
an inspirational leader who
generates loyalty and excellence
within your internal and
external legal teams; and a
smart and tough overseer of
litigation. We look forward to
your continued success!
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart
& Sullivan, LLP
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