“Blockchain is a game-changing technology for the legal industry and we are excited to be a part of shaping its development,” says ALA Executive Director Oliver Yandle, JD, CAE. “Membership in the GLBC is another opportunity for our members to play a leadership role in creating standards for the business of law. Along with legal matter codes we are developing through the SALI Alliance and ALA’s Uniform Process Based Management System, blockchain standards hold the promise of transforming the delivery of legal services.”
Members of the GLBC are required to initiate a proof of concept project (a “POC”) on blockchain technology. A blockchain POC evaluates an idea for a real-world application of blockchain technology to a legal challenge. The overall objective of the POC is to find potential solutions to technical and business problems, to define and evaluate core-use cases, and to determine the feasibility of proposed solutions.
ALA’s proof of concept project was its work in the Global Legal Hackathon. Team ALA focused on how the Uniform Process Based Management System (UPBMS) can play an integral role in capturing data for the many processes and tasks that support the delivery of legal services. The team devised a bot named Lexi to work in collaboration with various communications systems and then assign UPBMS codes to those actions.
“I now see how powerful and valuable the UPBMS codes can be to help our legal organizations analyze law firm processes so we can become more operationally efficient. I believe there is broad applicability of the code sets in all our legal organizations, regardless of size or practice focus,” says ALA President-Elect James L. Cornell, III, who’s Office Administrator with Shook Hardy & Bacon, LLP, in Washington, D.C.
The GLBC will have several functions, including webinars, platform infrastructures (venues for members to work together on blockchain projects), working groups, community building, thought leadership, education and access. GLBC will predominantly be a standards-setting and governance organization, focused on enhancing security, productivity and interoperability in the legal technology industry.