Blockchain technology is slowly and steadily making revotulizing impact over the world. Big names such as Oracle, IBM and Amazon have taken a step towards offering enterprise-grade blockchain powered systems and this has abruptly transformed it to become more secure and scalable.
Establishing ledger connections is no longer a challenge and businesses can actually start experimenting. However, despite some drastic examples of use in different sectors, the legal industry is still behind when it comes to adopting this advanced distributed ledger system based technology and blockchain secure QR code integration systems.
The lack of technological literacy and aversion to investment without rapid ROI could be among the major challenges that blockchain faces in the legal industry. Proper understanding of the blockchain technology is important prior to pitching the concept to traditional sectors such as the legal industry.
In this article, we discuss what exactly is blockchain technology and how it can be incorporated in law and some of the challenges that it needs to overcome for it to accelerate. Keep reading till the end to find it all.
What is Blockchain Technology?
Whenever there is any mention of blockchain, it is immediately associated with cryptocurrency. In fact, in early days, these two were almost synonymous with one another and perhaps is still the most appropriate example of this technology.
Blockchain technology is basically a decentralized public ledger that records transactions without the requirement for any third-party oversight or interference. These transactions are linked with a unique ID and logged.
The trades are always indisputable and anonymous which means offering unparalleled security and verification benefits.
How Can Blockchain Play a Bigger Part in the Legal Industry?
Blockchain’s capacity to save records in a transparent ledger system with enhanced security can greatly favor the legal industry. Below enumerated are some of the major applications that the blockchain technology looks set to transform over the near future.
Smart Contracts
As we have officially entered into the digital era, the boom of digital documents and information stored can raise the issue of cyberattacks that can impact the security systems. However, with blockchain tech involved, concerned parties can store these information securely and can even share with the relevant parties in real-time.
Within this process, all of the data stored can be verified in order to prevent fraudulent activities and completely abandon the need for developing contracts during a courtroom session. Beyond this, provided that the blockchain technology is absolutely immutable in nature, there need to be no such concerns related to the tampering of documents.
Smart contracts are able to execute themselves on the completion of specific set criteria. If we assume it is a ledger, then there is no way of moving toward the next transaction until the previous criteria is fulfilled.
The operation is pretty simple, when an action is not met with then there is no remuneration.
Estate Planning
If there is a trust that is due to be released upon an agreed date, with the help of blockchain technology that criteria could be automatically applied without any need for intervention or dispute.
In a smooth process, the funds could be released simply to the relevant parties as soon as the ledger entry is triggered by a specific event happening. This could severely transform the way wills are developed in the years to come.
Criminal Cases
Now just imagine how efficient the process would be where all case documents would be stored in a ledger that is tamper-proof and highly secure and it can be accessed by all the concerned parties involved with the case.
That is exactly what blockchain technology has the potential to do in the first place. Each year in the UK millions of pounds are spent on cases that don’t even reach for the trial, with the evidences always being lost or misplaced.
There are just numerous documents that may need an extensive amount of administrative time. This is the result of the outdated systems that are still being used and not the people that are involved in it.
The introduction of blockchain technology offers a shared ledger to all the necessary parties that massively cuts down cost and speeds up time to resolve these cases. From verifying the case documents with blockchain powered document authentication QR code to never having to misplace or lose the document, the resolving of cases can be done almost instantly.
Notarisation of Documents
There are many startups that have developed blockchain technology based services to offer document notarisation. The primary goal being that the services when used can prove and verify that a certain document existed at a point in time in a remotely verifiable manner.
This can solve the challenge of verification of notarised documents and can even offer visually authenticating the documents without involving any labor-intensive operations in the process.
Challenges Involved for the Adoption of Blockchain Tech in the Legal Sector
Despite the several possible benefits that have been discussed above, it can be said that we have only covered only the surface of potential perks of introducing blockchain tech into the legal industry. While we agree that this progressive tech can bring revolutionary transformations in certain areas, there are some key barriers that cannot be overlooked.
Firstly, the overall legal industry is not typically technologically advanced by nature. When there is an effort made to integrate new systems into an otherwise traditional industry, it is extremely difficult to really catch on. Many even find it hard to view the return that they would get upon their investments if they even decide to take a dive into this new tech and therefore, are not really rushing to adopt any changes.
Additionally, there are also legal issues associated with blockchain as there isn’t any suitable governance and regulation around the use of this technology.
Bottom Line
While there are plenty of opportunities that await for the legal industry when it adopts the blockchain tech and its related solutions such as blockchain secure QR code integration, there are massive challenges that are slowing down the rate of adoption and making the big leap that this industry can make.
