Tag: future of law

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The Legal Update

The new social contract of law

Six months into 2020, the legal profession has taken emergency measures to face a global crisis, has gone through an unexpected digital transformation and is just now assessing the situation to plan for the future. The road we take can either be a unique opportunity to reshuffle the cards and rethink the way we work or to set aside the past few months and get back to the old ways. 

Inspired by the RSA’s A Blueprint for Good Work report, LegalGeek’s The Uncertain Decade and Ari Kaplan’s virtual lunches, we look at future trends and models that will impact the delivery of legal services for years to come. One or more of these forces may be instrumental in shaping sustainable solutions for our current major legal industry issues.

#1 Value-based legal services

Since its earliest days, legal services have had a strong focus on continuous improvement to deliver the highest possible value to the client but that value was often hard to quantify or qualify. Unlike other professions, law has never really adopted peer review systems and the use of metric-linked incentives for legal services providers, except in some areas of B2C legal practice. The billable hour and profit per partner have long been the golden standards of success but that is changing.

In large legal teams, general counsel have passed the procurement baton to chief operating officers responsible for data-driven quality improvement initiatives across all levels of business – including legal. Every aspect of legal services delivery is increasingly subject to quality and cost assessments. Economic rewards (getting invited to a panel) and penalties (falling off a panel) are also becoming more tied to those assessments. Alternative legal services, with remote or flexible legal services models, or legal tech solutions have shifted from being bystanders to trusted partners in a global industry.

Economic consequences have kicked up a notch as the fee-for-service model gives way to value-based services. While success was more often measured by the number of hours billed or clients served, it will shift to a measure in terms of the economic growth and legal goals of clients.

There will continue to be a drive to find more innovative and effective value-based analytics, automation and reporting. To make a sustainable shift to value-based legal services, legal services providers will need to develop deep and substantive understandings of the foundations of client data, legal issues and services delivered. For new entrants to the market, that will mean breaking down the formidable barrier of decades-long law firm-client relationships to access the data.

#2 Tech-driven personalisation

While the delivery of legal services once followed a boutique protocol for every client, law is moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach and in some areas, is heading toward unique, personalised service delivery based on highly individual situations and conditions. 

Companies increasingly require cheaper, faster, more efficient legal services customised for them. Process mapping, machine learning and AI are among the advances that make this possible. Deloitte confirmed this trend, predicting in 2016 that 39% of all legal tasks would be automated by 2030, which is good news as most of these tasks were either repetitive or mind numbing, with humans bringing little value to the process.

As fitness trackers monitor our health, it is not so far-fetched to imagine internal business health trackers measuring the smooth running of contracts, low litigation rates and irregular spikes in the need for legal services. Combined with predictive risk analysis and regulatory tools, data science could help identify future legal needs and the best models of legal service delivery for complex transactions. 

At this point in the legal forest, two paths diverge: do we compete with emerging systems or do we build them? Hopefully, the second path will prevail. That means that new lawyers will need to understand data analytics as well as soft skills such as EQ, collaboration & cultural awareness. Rather than looking at the end of lawyers, new trends would reimagine the legal industry for the digital age with a more customer-centric approach.

#3 Society-driven legal services 

After decades of money-driven growth, the coronavirus crisis shook the very foundations of our consumer society and purpose crept in as a pillar of future growth. This type of model envisages a future of responsible stewardship where all legal professionals, business or practice, should be focused on the best outcome for their private clients as well as for society. 

There is a place in the legal landscape for lawyers who service vastly-underrepresented areas and more opportunities for career paths that will help people. Whether the end goal is access to justice, diversity & inclusion or the climate crisis, there is a tremendous opportunity for future lawyers to create the apps, or to help the creator of the app by giving them use cases, to address a societal need. 

In this empathy-driven model, the legal profession has an opportunity to better serve society and come back to its ethical roots. It will also open up its door to a new generation of non-legally-trained legal professionals. Some of the smartest new legal services are designed by people who are not lawyers. They are in the business of helping people and the difference in emphasis is huge as the rise of these services is completely consumer-driven. 

There are opportunities in adversity. Something as simple as putting more services online, allowing clients to generate forms, a mix of self-help and lawyer review will all improve access to justice and society. Future approaches will need new tools that connect people to potential resource assistance options, provide a means for follow-up and use analytics to determine success.

#4 Customer experience

Lawyers as a profession had a very insular culture outside of a more diverse ecosystem. Now, lawyers are one part of a team, with the client as the final decision-maker in setting and achieving their own goals. This power shift will break down business silos, with a legal industry open to new models and newer ways to doing things. 

As general counsel and legal leaders play a larger role in their own legal services decisions, providers will be increasingly focused on improving the customer experience at all levels. It’s becoming increasingly clear that a satisfied client is also an engaged one and studies have linked client engagement to better outcomes and lower costs.

Lawyers will also be able to align and collaborate with the industry as law merges with data analytics, engineering, or computer science. Where traditional lawyers have been about input and bespoke labor, legal professionals are about output, scaling and legal efficiency. They will be led by a more customer-centric approach, with a heightened effort to solicit and use client feedback and responses. This means not just “asking to ask,” but asking with the intent of making real change. 

Conclusion

These major trends in the delivery and operation of legal services will have big impacts on the clients and legal teams of the future. One thing we can be sure to expect is a continuous evolution toward connecting across the legal system, with clients at the centre.

 

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The Legal Update Trending

How to Future-Proof Your Career as Law Firms Evolve

Guest blogger Louisa van Eeden-Smit of LexisNexis UK follows her recent article on smart contracts with another future-gazing blog, this time looking at what you need to future proof your career for the law firm of the future.

What will the law firm of the future look like? It’s a reasonable question to ask considering how much the legal market has changed already, and the ever-increasing pace of change moving forwards.

PwC’s 2018 Law Firm Survey found that 100% of the top 10 firms cited technology as the key challenge to growth over the next two years, but there is an overall optimism about the direction the industry is heading and the ability to stay competitive. The key questions that seem to come up in our experience are: How much will technology change the face of legal service? Will the generalist die out? Will more firms merge, or will the niche outfit emerge triumphant? Will more lawyers become self-employed, providing virtual services to organisations?

Regardless of the outcomes, there are ways that legal professionals – be they part-time, returners, flexi-workers, or full-time in-house – can future-proof their careers.

Here are 5 key ways that legal professionals can move forwards in this changing world:

#1 Be flexible

A degree of agility and flexibility will be necessary regarding how lawyers deliver legal services. This is as true now, with the advent of new regulations and an increasingly tech-savvy and informed client base, as it will be in the future. A willingness to adapt will serve you well, as well as open-mindedness regarding alternatives to the traditional model of working that is fast becoming a relic. From portfolio careers to flexible working, there are more models than ever to suit professionals – and benefit both employer and employee.

#2 Listen to the client

Client loyalty isn’t a given in a market replete with so many options – it’s earned. Today’s client is more informed and tech-savvy than ever. They are willing to shop around and they are empowered. When clients demand efficient, tech-led services, for example, legal services providers should listen and adapt.  It’s also important to be proactive and show how the firm is anticipating future change and preparing to evolve services.

#3 Develop relationships

Client loyalty may not reign supreme anymore, so it has become critical that law firms prove themselves to the in-house legal teams they serve. Listening to what they need and learning the business from the inside out will allow them to stand out from the crowd by offering in-house counsel exactly what they want, exactly what they consider to be valuable. “Deep knowledge of the business is what really breeds loyalty,” according to Richard Harris, Chief Legal Officer at Robert Walters Group.

#4 Be more commercial

In addition to learning about the business in order to provide more nimble and forward-looking advice, a future-proof and commercial legal professional is one that acts proactively. If you can look ahead and anticipate what issues might impact your business and put forward relevant plans of action, you will prove yourself to be indispensable. Such advice is “worth its weight in gold”, says Dean Nash, Head of Legal and Compliance at Monzo Bank, and will allow you to retain business in a competitive market.

#5 Make technology your friend

In-house legal teams consider it to be a win-win. After all, with technology streamlining the service, the process becomes faster, and invoices get lower. Legal tools are just that – tools that can be used to support lawyers, not replace them. Harnessing them to provide efficient service is a no-brainer, especially considering the fact that it can free up lawyers to focus on the parts of their job they actually like.

Overall, legal professionals who are willing and able to jump in and run with the changes – namely, maintaining a lean, agile practice, one that uses technology and offers efficient, business-centric service – will find themselves in a good position – and way ahead of the curve.

It also seems there is a common prediction emerging – part hope, part anticipation based on current trends – that law firms will be more holistic in the future. This applies to both client service and employee care. There is a hope that law firms will take a broader look at the service they provide; addressing the whole commercial picture of the business, as opposed to offering discrete pieces of legal advice, for example.

Similarly, more holistic practices with regards to employee care, respecting work-life balance and acknowledging their varying needs, are expected. As Alison Unsted, head of global diversity, inclusion and wellbeing at Hogan Lovells, said in a recent LexisNexis piece on the perks and benefits future law firms might provide: “As the make-up of our people changes over time, as a firm we need to ensure that we are agile in our response, so that our benefit offering continues to attract and retain talent.”

For consultants or legal professionals moving into this sphere, or laterally moving within it, there are more opportunities than ever to have the kind of career you want. The legal market is constantly evolving and allowing for more diverse working opportunities – the only question remains: what does the legal team or law firm of your future look like?

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Making Work, Work Trending

The Impact of Millennials on The Legal Industry

We are delighted to have Louisa Van Eeden of Lexis Nexis UK join us as a guest blogger on The Attic. Her first post takes a look at how millennials are shaping the future of the legal industry.

Millennials. They’re the generation that everybody loves to blame for, well, pretty much anything. They are branded as “snowflakes”, and written off as a problem that either needs to be overcome, or ignored until they ‘grow up’ and become more like the older generations. But who are they really, and what impact are they having on the legal industry?

Much like Generation X back in the 1990s, the term millennial is often used in the media to refer to anything related to a youth culture that other generations generally don’t understand that well. Unlike Generation X, the Millennial Generation was typically born between the early 1980s and the late 1990s, and grew up in a dramatically different landscape to their forebears. The world has changed: the internet dominates our lives, job security and home ownership are not a certainty; the future of the planet is at risk through climate change; and it’s becoming rapidly apparent that continuing with a business as usual attitude, just because that’s the way it’s always been, is untenable.

Consequently, millennials simply aren’t as compelled by traditional practices as previous generations, both in life and work. They are who they are. Where previous high achievers would chase salary, millennials now typically look for a company that aligns with their values. For the millennial, culture reigns supreme. In fact, a study recently conducted by Fidelity showed that millennials are willing to give up (up to) £7,600 in salary every year for a job that gave them a better environment and culture.

The Millennial Takeover

Considering that millennials now form the backbone of staff and client bases, making up to 35% of our current workforce, with that set to increase to 50% of the workforce by 2020, this is not a demographic to underestimate. Millennials are not just a vague notion of youth culture, they are real people progressing into management positions, and are shaping the technological and cultural landscape of every industry, including the law.

The “The Millennial Takeover”, identifies three key areas where the legal industry is seeing the impact of millennials:

#1 Talent Acquisition

This is a key battleground for law firms and one which millennials are well-positioned to approach and understand, especially because, as the Financial Times continues to report, firms are struggling to source and retain talent in today’s rapidly changing marketplace. Attracting the best and brightest young talent is more important than ever before, and harder than ever before, with this generation taking a markedly different approach to their careers. Millennials are key to helping law firms communicate their vision of the future, enabling firms to modernise with an eye to the demands of new talent and driving a competitive edge.

#2 The Ability to Drive the Profession Forward

Law firms are already changing with the millennial worker in mind. As the Law Journal Newsletter reports: “A number of firms have moved, remodelled or completely overhauled their physical workplaces with millennials in mind, favouring common areas, for example, over large corner offices.” But it’s not just physical changes, but more fundamental ones as well. As one of the co-founders of the Legal A-Team asserts, the partnership model – one of the traditional prestige markers in law firms – is no longer the aim: “Millennials want what they want and they want it now. The patience factor is not one of their fortes — they’re not going to stand around for 12 years.” In order to retain and attract millennial talent (and not lose them to agile, tech-forward start-ups), law firms will need to significantly adapt their culture and perhaps even their company structure.

#3 A Creative Approach to Business Practices

Law firms and lawyers need to think more creatively about their working practices in light of the rise of consumerism in today’s legal market. Client power is increasingly dominant, with billing and efficiency becoming ever more important. New and agile practices, from social media to technology, are areas where millennials excel. They also prefer to work collaboratively rather than as a silo, which may well serve firms well moving forwards. Being open to change and engaging in a dialogue with junior members of the team may be beneficial here, in order to ensure that the firm remains stimulated and doesn’t fall behind.

Millennials and Legal Tech

While all three areas are important to understand, technology is the one that underpins them all. The agile working practices and lateral knowledge-sharing solutions favoured by millennial legal professionals and legal start-ups are all enabled by technology. Indeed, there are already reports that legal tools are being used with increasing regularity. A recent LexisNexis In-house Insights report, ‘Legal Technology – Looking Past the Hype’ found that 85% of in-house legal teams surveyed have introduced multiple technology types and almost three quarters (73%) of respondents who have already introduced legal technology tools are making plans to expand their implementation. It is very likely that the next generation of lawyers will practise law in very different ways.

As Head of the Global Cyber Security Practice at Herbert Smith Freehills Andrew Moir suggests, lawyers have an obligation to stay up to date with legal developments and new technologies: ‘There have always been areas where an understanding of both the law and technology is helpful, such as patents, IT contractual disputes or cyber security. But now we’re increasingly being instructed on the legal aspects of cutting edge technology such as blockchain, electronic signatures, artificial intelligence, and data analytics, to name a few. Before we can advise on these sorts of developments, we really need as lawyers to understand the technology behind them.’

The Flexible Generation

Technology is undoubtedly changing the legal profession, and it’s likely that the next generation of lawyers will practise law in very different ways. Indeed, there is already a growing section of the workplace – populated by those who have different life demands and values – who no longer fit the traditional working model. This has led to an increase in portfolio careers as well as flexible working models designed to benefit both employee and employer. This can be seen in the continued success of organisations such as Obelisk Support, which recently joined the FT Future 100 UK list as a diversity leader – the only legal company to do so.

This trend is likely to continue to increase and evolve as more millennials dominate the workforce, bringing with them their approach to work-life balance, their use of technology as a natural enabler, the importance they place on purposeful business (one which looks beyond the profit line), their desire for flexibility, and their alternative definitions of success.

We are entering an exciting era for the legal industry, one in which we wait in watchful anticipation to see who will accept and accelerate this new approach to working culture, and what impact it will have across the legal profession and wider society.

For more insights on how young lawyers are best positioning themselves to weather the upcoming changes, check out our post on “The Legal Profession for Millennials”. 

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Women in Law

Legal Upheaval: In Conversation with ‘Legal Rebel’ Michele DeStefano

How do we deal with upheaval as individuals? We have to adapt, be open to the changes ahead and listen to advice. In the legal profession, it is no different – as the world in which we practice law changes rapidly, lawyers need to be ready to rethink how they work.

That is the premise of a new book by Michele DeStefano, law professor and founder of LawWithoutWalls and MoveLaw. Legal Upheaval: A Guide To Creativity, Collaboration and Innovation in Law introduces readers to 7 essential experiences that lawyers must master to achieve innovation, transform their collaboration with clients, and create solutions at the intersection of law, technology and business.

With some urgency, the author encourages lawyers to think and behave differently in order to drive the innovation that so many in the industry are calling for. We were lucky enough to chat to Michele, and she is just as infectiously passionate in person as she tells us about the process of writing the book and the need for lawyers to be more ‘open’…

You are recognised as a ‘legal rebel’ by the American Bar Association – what does that mean to you?

To me a legal rebel means someone who isn’t just talking about what needs to be fixed in legal practice, both in training and practice, but is actively taking risks to do things that are different. Ironically, since the law is slower to change than other industries it’s not that hard to be considered a rebel!

There certainly is a lot of talk about innovation at the moment – in the book you define it as ‘lasting incremental change that adds value’, how much of that are we seeing right now?

There are various ways to define innovation, and it can be a hackneyed word. But there is some consensus in law that innovation is still about small steps – small change is difficult but is easier than asking for ‘big bang’ innovation, especially in a world of people that like the status quo.

However, lawyers and Heads of Innovation I think still inaccurately focus on the technology side of innovating, and it’s starting to frustrate in house teams and clients. Not every innovative solution has to be a technology. Will tech be involved in improvement? Yes probably, but we need to first change the view of the way legal services are provided. The focus needs to shift from what lawyers do, to how we do it; how we are utilising and leverage tech in order to improve our service and provide better legal products. If we look at design thinking, there was a similar trajectory that law is now learning from: there is lots of literature on the design thinker perspective on improving service, and we’re starting to see people from a design thinking method background being hired to work with lawyers to help them work through pain points and affect change in their service.

You put great emphasis on encouraging lawyers to be more collaborative and well-rounded in order to drive the changes needed in the industry…

Yes, that is something we typically struggle with. It’s a chicken-egg scenario: is the law attracting a certain type of person – those who are more introverted, more risk averse, more sceptical, but are great at complex problem solving – or is it that through the way training and practice churns and burns us that we create them?

That’s not to say being risk averse and sceptical are bad things, because in so many ways it’s our job to be those things to protect clients. We need those qualities, but it’s important to not be that all the time in the way we approach everything we do. Be a human! Use that fantastic lawyer mind but let’s work together and build on each other’s ideas to create a better service for those we work with.

Tell us about how you try to encourage openness with Law Without Walls?

With Law Without Walls, we have created a learning programme that is multidisciplinary in every way – people of all ages experience levels and type of discipline: academics, public servants, law firms and law schools from across the world come together into teams to co-create a Project of Worth – a practical solution to a real business problem designed to bring value. It’s extremely rewarding to watch the teams, especially the lawyers, change and grow in the way they ask questions, think about problems, approach meetings etc.  Especially when you hear that their teams back home notice the difference too, so much so they are asking them ‘who are you and what have you done with Craig?!’ That impact is exactly what we aim to achieve.

How was the process of writing Legal Upheaval? What did you learn from it and was there anything that surprised you in the conversations you had?

It wasn’t so hard to write but it was hard to edit! It took two years of interviews and I had enough for three books but had to edit it all down to one.  Interviewing is really a tough field – it requires listening beyond listening, there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’! We should be doing more interviewing training in law school.

Obviously I knew going in that the topic of innovation was being pushed, GC and in-house counsels are constantly saying ‘innovate or die’ but they don’t exactly know what it is or what they are asking for. Can you really measure it if you only know it when you see it? There’s an analogy to be made there with the diversity movement – calls for diversity initially were very vague, so firms would say ‘oh we have a female working with us’ – no mention of what level they were at, but okay!

It was only over time that the questions became more focused: what % of minorities are in our organisation, what % on my senior team are diverse etc. Now, clients are asking for your flexi-time policies, because without that you cannot support diversity – diversity doesn’t truly exist without creating an inclusive culture and environment.

It’s the same with innovation – who is going to lead it? What are you hoping to achieve? If you don’t want the same thing to happen as diversity, where you are racing to  meet client demand instead of forward thinking and define innovation for yourself, now is the time to be asking serious questions. Part of being a great innovator  is self awareness.

Another thing I was surprised by was the amount of in-house counsel complaints on simple matters – particularly over advising. There is a disconnect there, and I don’t know why or what is happening. Perhaps it’s because we are taught to see the trees not the forest, so many lawyers are missing the bigger picture of how their documents are used in day to day business practices. In-house counsel can read the law, they don’t want to receive reams of information that they have to filter and rewrite. We need to spend more time sitting back listening and asking ‘why’ in what we are doing. Of course, that makes people uncomfortable, especially the more senior we get, as we think we know the answers and we are taught to find answers for ourselves.

From your experience as a professor of law, is there a change in approach to teaching? Are students coming in with different expectations now? 

It is a bit like moving the Titanic. I don’t know if students are all that different – for hundreds of years they have come in with bright eyes and big hearted missions, that won’t change, but the next generation may have different expectations of the culture of law. Unfortunately law schools are much slower to move and the tenure systems that are in place very much encourage status quo and professors keep on teaching the same things they have taught for years. So, though there are some great things being done in law schools across the world in terms of bespoke programmes being created, it’s not reaching every student that it should. But it’s not just up to the schools, it’s going to take the whole village to move and change way we train and retrain lawyers.

What do you hope people will take from the book overall?

My hope is that people will leave with hope. Lots of articles about law as an industry are negative, but we should realise that some of the traditional habits that have made us successful so far are also characteristics that we can utilise to get over hurdles. The mission of the book is to get every lawyer to try a problem solving group project with the mindset of an innovator and try to adopt some of those skill sets and characteristics.

My three rules of engagement are Open Heart, Open Mind and Open Door – it does sound corny, but they are essential. Yes, effective people are good at editing out the nonsense and saying no to things, but innovators are different. They let go of preconceptions and allow themselves to be more open to accept seemingly silly ideas. That’s something that those in the legal industry can adopt and build on, and take that brilliant lawyer brain to fine tune and turn them into the really good ideas. We can approach creative problem solving collaboratively through just a small shift in thinking.

Michele’s efforts to encourage collaboration struck a real chord with us here at Obelisk. While this change in mindset is a challenge for all lawyers given their traditional education, DeStefano concludes it is overall good news for women lawyers, because on balance they are better at the necessary skills: having an Open Mind, Open Heart and Open Door. It certainly gave us hope that we are on a real cusp of change in the legal industry, and that small actions being taken today are laying the groundwork for a more open and inclusive future.

Legal Upheaval is available on Kindle and in Hardcover Edition from 1st October

 

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The Legal Update

Investing in the Future of Cryptocurrencies and the Blockchain: Interview With John Lore, Capital Fund Law Group

While cryptocurrency valuations may currently be in a state of decline, confidence around them being a long term prospect seems to be increasing, and more people in the legal industry are taking note. At Obelisk Support,  we follow this topic with interest as our clients get on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. Investment fund lawyer John Lore advises clients on cryptocurrencies and investments as part of his firm Capital Fund Law Group, and places great importance on educating the wider industry on the implications of cryptocurrency investment and blockchain technology. He took some time out of his increasingly busy schedule to talk to us about the pressing issues and how lawyers are responding.

What is your legal background and when did you decide to create the Capital Fund Law Group?

I was previously with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where I worked within their Hedge Fund and Private Equity practice. Then in 2010, I launched my own firm to focus exclusively on the investment fund sector and fund manager sector. To begin with, most of our clients were in the United States and it took a few years to build a global clientele.

How did you first come to deal with cryptocurrencies? What were the perceptions and predictions for cryptocurrencies like then, and how have they evolved since?

We started getting some phone calls about cryptocurrencies around 2013. We initially held off were as we were not ready to jump into the asset class, until 2016 when we launched our first cryptocurrency fund. [In those years] we invested effort in getting up to speed on regulations and drafting some of the initial disclaimer language. It was still very new so getting comfortable from a regulatory perspective took some time.

In terms of wider perceptions – honestly, I didn’t see much perception at all from legal community early on, pretty much nothing was being discussed back then. The shift in perceptions really happened recently in Spring 2017 where there was an explosion of activity in cryptocurrency due to the initial major surge in price of Bitcoin.

Though perceptions around cryptocurrency are rapidly developing, it’s still a very new area. How do you support and advise clients who are interested yet inexperienced?

We emphasise a solid experience in finance. From 2017, we ended up receiving hundreds of phone calls for individuals who wanted to start cryptocurrency funds. We were, and still are, very cautious about representing fund managers who have experience with crypto but don’t have a background in the finance sector. We are more on the side of tempering the swift formation of a cryptocurrency fund and teaching emerging managers how to create the proper structure for a fund. There are a lot of people we deal with who are very savvy with technology and are startup focused, so we advise them to partner with career finance people to create a more diversified skillset.

How have lawyers had to adjust their learning and experience to cryptocurrencies and the blockchain? 

There is much more interest now than there was, particularly in recognising that certain aspect of blockchain technology will change the future of a number of industries. From the investment side, we’ve seen a lot more education pop up – there have been some real strong early adopters on the legal side, who lack seasoned experience in finance, that we end up turning away but that gap is now getting filled by others. In general, there is a continued interest in the legal community in understanding the space and serving it. We, of course, only see a small slice of that in an investment context but in terms of the blockchain universe e.g. smart contracts, coin offering token offerings etc. there is a tremendous need for legal counsel in all those fields.

I think we’re right in the middle of the shift between curiosity and significant resources being allocated to the area. Again, I can only speak for the investment side, but a lot will depend on emergence of institutional investment and Wall Street involvement. I anticipate along with the rest of the cryptocurrency community that there will be major transitioning to a greater focus from these areas.

What impact are cryptocurrencies and the blockchain having now? 

There’s a plethora of opportunities that can be matched with technology across many sectors. On the investment side, there are major opportunities for cryptocurrencies as a stored value, and blockchain is already proving to be a very important aspect of the industry going forward.

What is the future looking like? Will certain cryptocurrencies eventually become a way of life for more institutions and individuals?

There’s the question of whether it will gain mainstream acceptance and whether it will continue as a convenient form of exchanging value. My predictions are: as an investment vehicle, yes, for next few years it will be limited to hedge funds and to high net worth individuals as a major trading instrument, but that can change as soon as there are infrastructures capability such as custodies and exchanges allowing for exchange traded funds (ETFs) – that would provide a strong avenue for retail level participation. Regarding seeing cryptocurrency as a replacement currency for our existing financial structures, that is more of an academic question at this point.

What developments and changes are still required to ensure longevity?

That’s exactly the question I like to be asked! Right now, the question most people have in mind is when and how the problem of custody will be resolved. That is both a technological problem and a legal problem. Getting the technology to a place where we can satisfy the custody requirement to meet financial crime compliance and to satisfy the regulatory requirement of jurisdictions around the world is a big challenge. So, we announced in July at our Cryptocurrency Custody workshop the creation of a working group, an international council of self-regulatory organisations that is going to be co-sponsored by the Stanford Law Blockchain Law and Policy Journal, and the Global Center for Investment Fund Studies, our non-profit research centre. There is a real need for international dialogue. There has been a tremendous interest in London, Dubai, and parts of Asia, and everyone is looking to the U.S. on this – a lot of dialogue is needed on how regulations will be shaped how self-regulatory bodies will play a part in that.

John Lore is a member of the New York State Bar and the Utah State Bar.  Mr. Lore represents fund managers and securities issuers throughout the United States. Capital Fund Law Group advises emerging and established hedge fund managers, with a strong focus on cryptocurrency funds on all aspects of fund formation and ongoing operations.

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The Legal Update Trending

SXSW 2018: The Hot Legal Topics We’ll Be Keeping an Eye On

Photo from SXSW 2017 by Ann Alva Wieding

As February zooms past, we’re taking a look forward to the biggest technology event in the Spring Calendar – SXSW 2018. Taking place from 9th – 18th March in Austin, Texas, SXSW will as ever be the talk of the tech, film, music and media worlds as an array of experts, innovators and artists come together to explore the future of human creation and ideas. As Obelisk Support steps firmly into the legal tech sphere with an upcoming app and smart software release, we’ll be keeping an eye on here in The Attic as the conferences and festivals unfold…

The changing nature of our shared existence also draws some interesting legal questions – here are some of the key subjects .

Smart Contracts to Replace Lawyers?

A panel discussion including blockchain expert and founder of the Digital Chamber of Commerce Perianne Boring will take on one of the biggest concerns for lawyers in 2018: What will smart contracts mean for their jobs in the future?

While much of the discussion has been framed around the assumption that smart contracts will inevitably replace lawyers – we are starting to see more measured analysis that may calm fears in the legal industry, for now at least. As is the case with AI, the other major innovation of our age, we are still far away from a time where the technology is ready to completely replace the complex and multi-faceted roles of the human lawyer. For those unfamiliar, smart contract technology consists of a self executing code stored on a public blockchain facilitating the negotiation and performance of a contract. However, the name ‘smart contract’ is misleading, as it only does what it is programmed by us to do, rather than being able to analyse data and come to decisions by itself. So while it seems the answer to the above question is currently no, it will be interesting to hear the thoughts of the panel about where the technology may take us, and how it will enable the function of the lawyer to evolve.

The Legal Implications of AR Going Mainstream

Augmented and virtual reality will be a key feature of this year’s festival with many talks and interactive events planned, but as AR and VR becomes a bigger part of our lives, how will lawyers need to update their knowledge and expertise to deal with the legal implications of our virtual existence? There will be numerous events touching upon this topic at SXSW 2018, including Avoiding Privacy/Security Legal Snafus in VR/AR, and Mo Reality, Mo Problems.

The most pressing concern is of course privacy and security. Data collection methods don’t differ much to other digital applications, however the volume and types of data being collected are much more extensive and detailed, building up a more complete picture of a user and their physical movements, habits, purchases, interactions, etc. AR/VR companies and companies adopting the technology will need to have stringent training and procedural protocols in place to ensure users are equipped with the knowledge to keep their own data safe in practice, and have the sufficient legal protections in place should a data breach occur.

Some of the problems that will arise as AR and VR becomes more widely adopted relate to intellectual property (IP). North American Copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (and their European equivalents) may have to be reexamined in this context, and it is important that lawyers dealing with clients who have or are likely to adopt AR/VR are strengthening their knowledge. Then there is the issue of brand interaction – how AR technology developers will ensure that brands that are interacted with have given permission for their brand to be used in this way and to be associated with the technology creators.

Individual Governing of Data

The blockchain, AI and machine learning is also creating far reaching change in the way that data is held and managed. A Game Changing Shift in the Control of Personal Data is part of the IEEE Tech for Humanity Series, and  the introduction declares that an ‘extinction-level event is occurring in the digital economy. Power will soon shift from organisations to people as legal, social and market forces give citizens new rights.’

Covering pertinent regulatory topics such as GDPR, the overarching issue remains that the legal industry across the world is still playing catch up as individuals rapidly gain sovereign control over their personal data. While much of the change may be welcome and liberating, there is still a responsibility to protect citizens and organisations from cyber security threats and the consequences of data breach. The expert view on a potential ticking time bomb will be welcome to all data and corporate lawyers. Panel speakers at the event are Doc Sears of Project VRM, Berkman Klein Centre and Harvard University, Karen McCabe of IEEE, and Nicky Hickman of Inglis Jane Ltd.

CLE Track: Cyber Extortion, Social Media Musics Rights and More

SXSW’s Continuing Legal Education programme brings together legal experts from Twitter, Sundance Institute, Sony Music, Facebook and others to discuss the most pertinent legal issues in music, film and interactive digital worlds. Some of the highlights include a discussion on cyber extortion – including advice on negotiating with and taking the decision to pay the crooks, and the perfect storm of music licensing on social media. There will also be a free ethics session for SXSW registrants and other ethics focused events such as Ethics in VR/AR Journalism and When Programmers Are Asked To Do The Unethical.

One Eighty – a Short Film on Undertrials in India

A screening of a fascinating new short film will highlight a major flaw in India’s legal system. A shocking figure from Prison Statistics India 2015 report suggests that two thirds (67%) of prisoners in the country are those on undertrial – individuals on remand, held in custody without conviction awaiting the outcome of a trial. One could be forgiven for thinking these custodies are short term, but prisoners can be left to languish for many years while trials are delayed and drawn out. Ajoy Gosh was one example of a long term undertrial prisoner, jailed in 1962 only to languish for the next four decades as he was certified unfit to stand trial after being arrested for the murder of his brother.

To further put a human slant on the issue which still affects so many in India, One Eighty tells the story of a mother, Vijai Kumari, who spent 20 years behind bars, and her son, Kanhaiya Kumari. Once released from prison at the age of 6, he began a relentless quest to save his mother from being punished from a crime she never committed. The project is part of the Oculus VR for Good Creators Lab, pairing filmmakers and nonprofits to make great VR in the name of social good.