Legal Tech, Smart Contracts and Blockchain (eBook)

Marcelo Corrales is an Attorney-at-Law specializing in intellectual property, information technology, and corporate law. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. He has a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree from Kyushu University in Japan. He also holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in international economics and business law from Kyushu University, and an LL.M. in law and information technology and an LL.M. in European intellectual property law, both from the University of Stockholm in Sweden. His most recent publications include New Technology, Big Data and the Law (Springer, 2017). Dr. Corrales’s past activities have included being a research associate with the Institute for Legal Informatics and IT Law at Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany) from 2007 to 2018. Mark Fenwick is Professor of International Business Law at the Faculty of Law, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. His primary research interests are in the fields of white-collar and corporate crime, and business regulation in a networked age. Recent publications include New Technology, Big Data and the Law (Springer, 2017) and The Shifting Meaning of Legal Certainty in Comparative and Transnational Law (Hart, 2017). He has a Master’s and a Ph.D. degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, and has been a visiting professor at Chulalongkorn University, Duke University, the University of Hong Kong, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, the National University of Singapore, Tilburg University, and Vietnam National University.  Helena Haapio is an Associate Professor of Business Law at the University of Vaasa, Finland and a Contract Innovator at Lexpert Ltd, Helsinki. After completing legal studies at the University of Turku, Finland, and Cambridge University, England, she served for several years as in-house Legal Counsel in Europe and the United States. A pioneer of the Proactive Law approach, she has for many years promoted the use of simplification and visualization in commercial contracting. Her multidisciplinary research focuses on ways to enhance the functionality and usability of contracts through design. Her books include Next Generation Contracts: A Paradigm Shift (Lexpert 2013) and two titles co-authored with Prof. George Siedel, A Short Guide to Contract Risk (Gower 2013) and Proactive Law for Managers: A Hidden Source of Competitive Advantage (Gower 2011). She also acts as arbitrator in contract disputes.

Preface 6
Contents 8
Editors and Contributors 10
Acronyms 13
Digital Technologies, Legal Design and the Future of the Legal Profession 15
1 Introduction 15
2 Blockchain and Smart Contracts 16
3 The Legal Design of (Smart) Contracts 20
4 The Future of the Legal Profession? 23
5 Chapters 24
References 28
Smart Contract This! An Assessment of the Contractual Landscape and the Herculean Challenges it Currently Presents for “Self-executing” Contracts 30
1 Introduction 31
2 Self-executing Contracts—How They Work 32
2.1 Smart Contracts 32
2.2 Smarter Contracts 35
3 Why Creating a New Book of Smarter Contracts Is Easier 36
4 Why Transforming an Existing Book of Contracts into Smarter Contracts Is Harder, But Still Desirable 37
4.1 Difficulty 37
4.2 Desirability 39
5 Cleansing the Augean Stables: The Need for Digital Contract Optimization to Prepare Existing Books of Contracts for Smarter Contracting 41
5.1 What Is Digital Contract Optimization? 43
5.2 Benefits of a Digital Contract Optimization: Resolving Inefficiencies, Eliminating Blind Spots 44
5.3 What a Digital Contract Optimization Might Look Like 45
5.4 The Potential of Semantic Computing or AI as Tools in Digital Contract Optimization 48
6 Twelve Herculean Challenges on the Road to Self-executing Contracts 49
6.1 General 50
6.2 External Factors 56
6.3 Internal Factors 61
6.4 Expert Mindset 63
7 Risks 66
7.1 Unravelling Existing “Agreements”/Waking Sleeping Dogs 66
7.2 New Black Boxes 67
7.3 Other Risks 68
8 Need for Change in the Legal Industry 68
8.1 Legal Education: From Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset 68
8.2 Delivery Models 69
8.3 Resistance to Change 69
8.4 Renaissance Lawyers 70
9 Conclusion 71
References 72
Successful Contracts: Integrating Design and Technology 75
1 Introduction 76
2 Simplification, Visualization, and Codification 77
2.1 Contracts as Documents Written by Lawyers for Lawyers 77
2.2 Simplification and Visualization: Contracts as More Than Documents, Shaped by More Than Lawyers 79
2.3 Computer Codification and Smart Contracts: Contracts not just Written and not for Lawyers Alone 84
2.4 Emergent Properties of Integrating Design with Data 87
3 Elements of the Contracting Process: Builders, Users, Layers, and Stages 89
3.1 Summary of System Elements 89
3.2 Builders and Users 90
3.3 Information Layers 92
3.4 A “Background Repository” Layer 93
3.5 Stages in the Contract Process 96
4 Conclusion 99
References 100
Exploding the Fine Print: Designing Visual, Interactive, Consumer-Centric Contracts and Disclosures 104
1 Introduction 105
1.1 Research Question, Output, and Audience 106
1.2 Methodology and Initial Findings 106
1.3 Chapter Structure 107
2 Literature on User-Centered Computable Contracts 107
2.1 The Call for Usable, Visual Contracts 108
2.2 Imagining a New Generation of Tech-Enabled Consumer Contracts 109
2.3 Making Contracts More Modular and Machine-Readable 110
2.4 Behavioral Economists’ Choice Engines as One Model 112
3 Others’ Insights and Existing Models 113
4 Design Experiments to Understand Future Computable Contracts 116
4.1 Design Research with Privacy and Financial Terms 116
4.2 The Process of Design Work 117
4.3 The User Journey Through a Contract 118
4.4 Priorities, Values, and Hooks for the User 120
4.5 Design Models that Have Emerged 122
5 Survey Evaluation of Insights and Concepts 123
5.1 Design Insights for Future Computable Contract Tools 127
5.2 Do People Want Computable Contract Tools? 128
5.3 Guiding Principles for Computable Contract Interface Design 129
6 Conclusion 130
References 131
Beyond Digital Inventions—Diffusion of Technology and Organizational Capabilities to Change 134
1 Introduction 134
2 Theoretical Frame of Reference 136
2.1 What We Can Learn from Previous Technological Shifts 137
2.2 What We Can Learn from the Literature on Organizational Change 142
2.3 What We Know About Legal Industry Characteristics 145
3 Understanding the Challenges for the Legal Industry to Adapt to Digitalization 147
3.1 Why Law Firms Do not Change: Economic Motives and Technological Complexity 147
3.2 The Impact of Digitalization and the Emergence of Legal Tech 149
3.3 Digitalization of Intellectual Industries Beyond Inventions
3.4 The Need for Dynamic Capabilities 151
3.5 Practical Implications 152
4 Conclusion 153
References 154
Contract Automation: Experiences from Dutch Legal Practice 158
1 Introduction 159
2 Methodology and Structure 161
3 Terminology, History and Digitization in Dutch Legal Practice 163
3.1 Terminology 163
3.2 History 165
3.3 Digitization in Dutch Legal Practice: A Brief Overview 168
4 Experiences with Contract Automation 170
4.1 Reasons for Starting with Contract Automation 170
4.2 Selecting the Software 171
4.3 Selecting the Contracts 173
4.4 Decomposing and Reconstructing Contracts 175
4.5 Personnel Implications 176
4.6 Challenges and Pitfalls 177
4.7 Future Developments 178
5 Conclusion 179
References 182
Legal Automation: AI and Law Revisited 183
1 Introduction 184
2 The Role of Legal Education 184
3 The Potential of AI Applications 187
3.1 Setting the Scene 187
3.2 The Topic in Brief 188
3.3 Overview of Substantive Law 190
3.4 Methodological Approach 192
4 Digital Person—A New Legal Entity? 192
5 Conclusion 195
References 196
Smart Contracts and Smart Disclosure: Coding a GDPR Compliance Framework 198
1 Introduction 199
2 Key Areas to Consider with Regard to the GDPR 201
3 Smart SLAs in the Cloud 203
4 Choice Architectures, Nudges and Legal Compliance 204
5 Smart Disclosures in Automated Smart Contracts 207
6 A Unified Modeling Language for Checking Legal Compliance 209
7 Nudging Cloud Providers Through a Pseudo-Code 211
8 Legal Questions for the Elaboration of a Pseudo-Code: Check Legal Compliance 213
9 Conclusion 223
References 224
“When People Just Click”: Addressing the Difficulties of Controller/Processor Agreements Online 230
1 Introduction 230
2 The Legal Concepts of Controllers and Processors 232
2.1 “Processing” and “Personal Data” 232
2.2 “Controller” 233
2.3 “Processor” 234
2.4 “Joint Controllers” 235
3 Controller/Processor Roles Online 236
3.1 “Classic” Dedicated Server Hosting 237
3.2 Distributed Computing 238
3.3 Listen Servers 239
3.4 Peer-to-Peer File Sharing 240
3.5 Blockchain 242
3.6 The Implications of Amateur Processors 243
4 The Contractual Approach 244
4.1 Entering into the Controller/Processor Agreement 244
4.2 Using the Controller/Processor Agreement to Promote GDPR Compliance 246
4.3 The Problem with the Contractual Approach 249
5 Beyond Conventional Contracts 250
5.1 Automated Measures 250
5.2 Other Measures for Increasing Compliance 255
6 The Regulatory Perspective 257
7 Conclusion 259
References 260
The Lawyer of the Future as “Transaction Engineer”: Digital Technologies and the Disruption of the Legal Profession 262
1 “Digital Revolution” 262
2 The Legal Profession Disrupted 263
2.1 “Legal Tech” and the Disruption of Legal Practice 264
2.2 Smart Contracts and the Disruption of Transactions and Organizations 266
2.3 “Net-Widening” and Expanding Transnational Legal Risk 268
3 The Lawyer of the Future as “Transaction Engineer” 270
3.1 “State-Managed” Deployment of Disruptive Technologies 270
3.2 The “Digital Revolution” 273
3.3 The Lawyer of the Future as “Transaction Engineer” 277
4 Conclusion 279
References 280
Index 282