Washington Lawyer - November 2018 - 33

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

WHAT GAME-CHANGING TECH
IS COMING NEXT FOR LAWYERS?
By David O'Boyle

RADIANCE W. HARRIS

SARAH S.M. CARPENTER

It's a great time to practice law! So many technological advances make it easier
to be a lawyer and serve our clients. We no longer have to be chained to our
desks to do our jobs well.

There are a lot of exciting technologies emerging in the legal world. I think the
most exciting and transformational developing technology is blockchain.
Blockchain will touch almost every aspect of corporate and transactional practices - it has implications for everything from data security to insurance
policies to financial transactions to commercial contracting - and beyond.

Managing Attorney
Radiance IP Law

One development that will continue to impact the legal industry is cloud-based
practice management software. Another is the increased use of mobile devices
and applications, which help lawyers communicate better, access files, automate,
and work from anywhere. It's no longer necessary to have an expensive office
with high overhead and paper files.
Clients expect their lawyers to be responsive, efficient, and proficient, and the
increased use of technology will not change these expectations in the future.
But it will improve how we communicate and do our jobs. If you haven't figured
out how to utilize technology in your practice, you will miss out on business
opportunities. It's 2018 - you must adapt or die.

Maria C. Simon of Geller Law Group talks about how
automated calendaring and deadline tracking will change
the legal industry in the future, while Cheryl Aaron of Michael
Best & Friedrich LLP discusses the impact of blockchain at
dcbar.org/news.

Debbie Harrison; courtesy of National Business Group on Health; Radiance W. Harris, courtesy Radiance IP Law,
LLC; Sarah S.M. Carpenter, courtesy of Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

Associate
Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

As a contracts attorney, I am particularly interested in blockchain contracts,
otherwise known as smart contracts. At its most basic level, smart contracts are
traditional contracts that are converted to computer code and become selfexecuting across the blockchain. Remedies for breaches are pre-coded and
automatic. For example, if a shipment is not delivered on time, money is automatically refunded to the buyer. This has implications for how transactions and
commercial deals are structured, as well as for how breaches are addressed and
disputed.
In the near future, attorneys will not only need to understand how to contract
for products run on a blockchain (for example, food safety tracking systems,
legal compliance tracking, or fraud protection tools using decentralized
ledgers), but they will also need to adapt to a different way of drafting contracts
and crafting obligations, breaches, and remedies based on computer code
rather than traditional drafting.

NOVEMBER 2018

WASHINGTON LAWYER 33

http://www.dcbar.org/news http://www.dcbar.org

Washington Lawyer - November 2018

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