«Return to Blog List Legal Release Form: Going the Way of the Dodo?

I’ve noticed an interesting trend the past year as I manage customer case studies for my clients.

Increasingly, companies are eschewing a legal release form once used to get customers’ official permission for public customer stories. Instead, they go with email approval. It’s a simple email reply indicating the customer approves the story for use.

Once, all companies had a formal release. Now, even the larger ones go with email approval.

Without a legal release form to circulate, customer approval is often faster. I’m sure that’s why companies are choosing to go this way.

But what’s missing in email approvals are the details about using the story – how, when, where and for how long – that are normally covered in a legal doc. Do companies not need this level of detail?

What ways do you see companies documenting approval these days?