The letters of the law.

(A newspaperman-turned-lawyer Russ Robinson III has been project editor for the Law Journal since its first appearance in 1996. A graduate of Duke University, he earned his law degree from Wake Forest Univesity and is an associate corporate counsel for Burlington Industries Inc. in Greensboro.)

Following the letter of the law has never been easy for businesses in this country. Federal statutes are found in the United States Code, a daunting publication that contains 50 titles, all with hundreds of sections and subsections. In printed form, it consumes four or five shelves in a law firm's library. The rules that apply the law - the Code of Federal Regulations, or CFR, as lawyers call it - are so vast that they make the U.S. Code look like a Readers Digest condensed version. In addition, each state has its own code, its own regulations and its own court system churning out volume upon volume of interpretations of law.

That's why BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA periodically partners with some of the state's leading law firms to publish the Law Journal -- to help businesses interpret this morass of information. Top Tar Heel practitioners, whose job it is to synthesize and apply the law, tackle some of the toughest issues of the day in these articles, which were underwritten by their respective firms.

As one of these articles notes, the letter of the law now can be expressed in electronic bytes. Ink-on-paper signatures are no longer required in most cases. The new e-sign law, passed on the state and federal level last October, permits legally binding contracts with electronic signatures, e-mail messages or even voice mail. Take note: Because the law is new, it is not certain how courts and various government...

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