To a common man, it may seem that blockchain is a concept that can be applied to just the crypto sector. Well, this revolutionary technology has a lot more to offer. The easiest way to think of it is as a decentralized digital ledger. In simple terms, the blockchain database is an incorruptible ledger stored by different users so that any unauthorized changes are not accepted.
The fact that the data cannot be tampered makes blockchain the perfect solution for an industry that stores sensitive data, and the legal industry is no different. In fact, blockchain could be coming to disrupt all sorts of ancillary industries that legal professionals need to deal with. For example, if blockchain is applied to real estate to store records on properties then it could impact everything from divorce cases and bankruptcy proceedings to murder trials.
Bringing law into the 21st century
When we think about lawyers and the legal profession, the temptation is to see it as an old-fashioned profession that’s so set in its ways that there’s no room for innovation. This stereotype simply isn’t true, which is why there’s already a Global Legal Blockchain Consortium that was established to promote the usage of blockchain within the legal industry.
If we pay close attention, there are all sorts of potential use cases for blockchain within the legal industry. Take, for example, the complicated concept of copyright law. Blockchain can make sure that artists are paid automatically when their tracks are streamed. Also, in criminal law, blockchain can be used to track the chain of custody when evidence is gathered and taken off for analysis.
You might have heard stories about evidence going missing or being accidentally destroyed. This can affect the result of a court case drastically. Using blockchain to store and to standardize all of this data could offer the same security as a paper trail but with less of the hassle. This is particularly true when it comes to digital evidence, such as browser records or digital documents.
Smarter contracts
No amount of disruption in the legal industry is likely to bring an end to its reliance on legal documents, from contracts between companies to written statements from witnesses and victims. But for a document to be binding, it needs to be signed and stored, a process which can take time and which is vulnerable to human error.
Blockchain technology has the capability of making the documentation process accessible and potentially even removing the need for a lawyer’s involvement in the first place. This just goes to show that not all change is necessarily good for individual lawyers, although it’s good for the industry as a whole. By automating these tasks, it frees up time to be spent elsewhere.
Besides, these contracts themselves may need legal oversight, and there’s a rapidly growing group of lawyers who are specializing in how local and international law applies to blockchains and the data that they gather. Along with artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain is one of the hottest topics on the lips of legal industry spectators and commentators.
Fewer disputes
Out of many advantages, one of the biggest advantages of using a blockchain-based system in real estate and the automotive industry is that it blockchain makes it easier to track the history of properties, vehicles, and buildings. You only have to look at how many cases go to court in which two neighbors dispute a property line or who has ownership of a parking space to see how a reliable digital ledger could be of use for the legal profession.
The technology could also give greater transparency on historic owners and property valuations. For example, in the real estate industry, it’s likely that every house will end up with its own record on the blockchain and that we’ll be able to see when it was built, how much it was sold for throughout the years and even the last time it had its boiler serviced.
This increased transparency will have implications for other criminal cases, too. For example, insurance fraud will become much more difficult because all of the data will be available in the blockchain. And because all of the data is available, companies will be able to analyze it on mass to look for anomalies.
One of the most important areas for the legal profession to focus on is the area of data and data protection, and blockchain technology makes that even more important. A blockchain based system provides a more open system that would make it easier to spot people who are breaking regulations. Imagine how much more we’d trust bankers if every banker had every trade they made logged and made available to everyone else – including to people who desperately want to catch them out. Fraud and insider trading would disappear virtually overnight.
For those in the legal profession, blockchain and its ramifications are likely to continue to be hot topics for the months and years to come.
Ultimately, we can conclude that blockchain is like any other technology. It has huge amounts of potential in various different sectors. One thing’s for certain, though. It’s one to watch.
