Blockchain technology has undergone quite a bit of consideration over the last year, with the potential to be a transformative force across increased diverse industries. At the center of this is the blockchain itself which contributes a procedure to create and manage a permanent – but also open – disseminated and shared ledger to be able to collect information.
When we study of high-tech industries, the legal sector merely is one that comes to the subconscious. After all, attorneys are often working towards clearing the general mountain of paperwork, and the classic film about the legal business is ‘The Paper Chase,’ which ends with papers being blown all over the campus quad. Blockchain could help decrease the time lawyers use on routine tasks, and that releases them up to use more time on legal insights.
However, the blockchain can confuse the practice of law, and drag it into the new century – there is already a Global Legal Blockchain Consortium which strives to standardize and promote its adoption. Here are a few methods in which blockchain will make a significant influence in the legal arena.
- Smart Contracts
Legal contracts are still drafted, with physical signs required on primary documents, which needs an enormous time to finish, all for a necessary legal agreement. The blockchain holds the hope to change this into a digital manner in what is being christened as ‘smart contracts.’ These smart contracts could be created and performed directly between the relevant parties, with less lawyer embroilment.
- Intellectual Property
The law has grappled when it comes to defending intellectual property in this digital age, including pictures, video and audio files, alongside figures and symbols. Artists and musicians attempt to protect their business, but too often their work gets used without their approval, and royalties do not get returned from audio streaming services that grapple with profitability.
- Blockchain law
The law continuously modifies to change according to societal demands. A decade ago, the legal arena had to approach digital media rights issues, and some attorneys started concentrating on this section of the law. However, with blockchain technology having the future to can be used beyond many sectors, the law will require to adopt again, and there is already a need to have lawyers concentrating in blockchain law – the new cutting-edge for the digital law.
- Property rights
Property rights encompass how an estate is acquired, sold and hired. Go down to any local government property department, and it is clear to see how this arena is attached in the last century, with piles of paper deeds, records and property cards all tracking property acquisition. And even when an office makes the change to go digital, it is still mostly just mountain of all the paperwork, with a database to keep it oriented. The blockchain, with its integrated security and digital ledger capacity, promises to be an adequate, secure and permanent method to store the data necessary for property rights, including land ownership and the details of when it changes hands.
- Chain of Custody
The chain of custody is a significant legal idea which documents what befalls to testimony in any criminal case. It is habitually a paper trail that gets generated for each piece of evidence and must be adequately maintained until this evidence gets presented in court. The blockchain is generally suited for application in the chain of custody, especially for the more important digital files. Hither, blockchain technology can be utilized to not only track the care of documents but also to safeguard the documents too. All this can be done through a digital ledger, there is a persistent account of the chain of custody, with the proof digitally preserved, so no evidence ever gets misplaced. This also reduces the need for the assertion about the preservation of the chain of custody, which is another advantage.
