By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 24th, 2024
Ripple and ANU law school have partnered to develop courses about blockchain in relation to the law profession. Adoption of blockchain into the legal sector will bring several advantages and advancements to the industry.
Australian National University (ANU) law school in collaboration with Ripple are set to begin two new courses in its master’s program to explore the effects blockchain would have on the legal profession.
With the courses being co-developed by Ripple Blockchain Research Initiative primarily aimed at partnering universities to analyze new trends and developments in the distributed ledger technology (DLT) cryptocurrencies, Digital payments, etc.
Australian National University before now has already taken undergraduate courses critically analyzing the relationship between blockchain and law, just like many other universities in Australia are doing.
The University of Melbourne and the University of Southern Queensland are said to be taking courses related to DLT and blockchain as other universities have joined it with other courses to be taken as topics in lecture rooms.
How ANU and Ripple Blockchain Courses Will Work
Reportedly, the blockchain units will be run and developed by Scott Chamberlain, an entrepreneurial fellow at the ANU law school. The designed courses are going to determine if blockchain and smart contracts can aid automating decentralized legal processes and resolving disputes.
Chamberlain, who is passionate about the potentials, likened it to eBay platform which can solve consumer law disputes without having to engage the court.
He said further that several simple legal processes like vetting identity and relationship of relevant parties alongside rules governing interaction could utilize blockchain. Chamberlain continued:
“[A legal dispute] deals with who are the legal identities that the law recognizes? What are the legal things that the law recognizes existing? What’s the relationship between people and things? And there’s a dispute resolution at the heart of it. When you look at the blockchain smart contract space, projects are doing all of those things.”
Chamberlain operates the ‘Lex Automatica’ platform at ANU, which is a move towards solving certain issues without any need to engage the middlemen and gatekeepers of the legal industry as Ripple contributed $1 million to the development of the Automatica platform.
However, legal practitioners and those in academia are beginning to show a profound interest in the potential blockchain can provide to decentralized dispute resolution as certain projects are already worked on like Jur, Kelos, and Aragon court.
Advantages Blockchain Brings to the Legal Sector
With full adoption of blockchain into the legal or judicial sector, the technology is projected to bring several advantages and advancements to the industry like accessibility, transparency, cost savings, automation, data integrity, and so on.
Blockchain technology can help professional legal practitioners to streamline and simplify their transactional work, digitally sign and immutably store legal agreements. Using scripted text, smart contracts, and automated contract management reduces excessive time spent preparing, personalizing, and maintaining standard law documents.
Furthermore, DLT helps create a shared ledger accessible by all parties to an agreement. Blockchain-based contracts have baked-in compliance, no surprises, and no room for misinterpretation. Additionally, non-technologists can better understand the transactions they enter into and what the smart contract represents.
The incorporation of blockchain tech into the law profession holds several advantages that cannot be exhausted when it eventually comes to fruition.