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I think people like to know that someone was there on the other side of the message, and the author of a letter is a fairly shadowy referent for the receiver. Simplex communication forms simply need a proxy for the message creator or they could lose meaning for the receiver. Maybe this a little too Marshall McLuhan, but I think as long as we use the medium of letters we will need signatures with them, or the form will be broken. They would no longer be “from” someone, and thus the receiver is left a little lonely, and may not readily know what to do with the contents.

Well, OK, but that just pushes the mystery one level down. Why do we still attach special significance to handwritten signatures on contracts? I think it’s because a signature is a cheap and easy mechanism to determine when a document is final (as opposed to a draft letter that accidentally got put in the mail, or a term sheet). Almost everyone can make a signature, and they are not easy to forge. Plus, as you note, cultural norms indicate that signing a document invests it with special significance, so it’s not likely to get signed prematurely.

BTW, this reminds me of the time when, while my mother was signing something, I announced that it was OK if we immediately changed our minds because “signing a contract has no magical significance.” Even the other lawyer in the room was pretty skeptical. I guess that’s why I became a law professor.

If I were a cheating student, I’d not hesitate to create a fake recommendation letter, if there were no one to point out it wasn’t real, and few consequences to me if I was found out.

But if I sign someone else’s name, that’s a step beyond mere fakery in applications. It’s akin to making that verifying statement you state above (My name is X, and I approved this statement), when you know for a fact that you’re not X, and that X didn’t. It becomes something that looks more like forgery, false representations under oath (and yes, I know you aren’t really swearing when you sign, just ‘verifying’), impersonation, maybe attempted fraud using false identification. Mail fraud, anyone?

So I think there’s certainly a reason to keep requiring signatures. It makes cheating much more serious, and somewhat easier to catch.

In the case of clerkship letters (and other of the cases you mention), the signature also makes it harder to crank out piles and piles of them. Not very much harder, true — and in the case of mass mailings, the autopen or other reproduction technology often renders this issue irrelevant — but enough to have some effect at the margin. It’s a weaker form of the reason that formulaic letters of recommendation have little impact. A personally tailored letter may not be as glowing, but you know that the author doesn’t send them out for just anyone.

Putting pen to paper and signing it is just a mundane imitation of this basic cosmic principle of eventually being held liable for what you are saying and is mirrored in any legal system. It brings into consciousness the essence of what I am saying and why am I signing it. It is an attempt to tune into the divine sequence of words, thoughts and actions that will reinforce righteousness, produce wealth, pleasure and bring release from bondage.

As any really good lawyer, who has at length and carefully studied piles of papers when working on a court submission, knows, when looking at evidence containing signatures for long enough, his mind will eventually tune into the original intent of the writer. Call it clairvoyance if you like.

Give me a (non trivial) legal contract and I will tell you the character of its owner.

When I was in college taking Latin and Medieval literature classes, I remember the prhase “manu propria”– meaning “signed with one’s own hand.” There are actually some very beautiful decorated letters from the period.

In later years, it was abbreviated to “m.p.” for governmental official documents, and I remember learning that it was used even in declarations of war up till WWI.

There is something very powerful in the phrase “signed by my own hand”–as if the power of your person and soul were behind that signature. It was a power used to wage wars. This is a rather diminished power when you delegate it to a machine.