Blockchain Revolution and the Evolution of Law

What is blockchain technology?

The blockchain is a decentralized network that facilitates the exchange of value and enables users to confidently manage and share data. Blockchain technology, which allows peers to transact business and exchange digital assets without the involvement of an intermediary started in 2009 with the development of a digital currency known as Bitcoin. The conceptional framework that makes Bitcoin possible is a digital payment network built on the blockchain.  

A lot has been written lately on the impact that blockchain will have on the practice of law. Resources for learning more about blockchain technology are provided below so you can identify which aspects of blockchain are most important and relevant to lawyers. Learn about where the blockchain is going and how the legal profession can prepare for it. (Tip of the hat to Joe Hodnicki of Law Librarian Blog for linking to some of the items listed here.)

Books

• Blockchain Revolution:How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World by Don & Alex Tapscott
• Blockchain by Melanie Swan (O'Reilly)
• Blockchain Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction in 25 Steps by Daniel Drescher
• The Blockchain: A Guide for Legal and Business Professionals (Thomson Reuters)

Articles

• Understanding the Blockchain (O'Reilly)
• The Blockchain: A Gentle Introduction by Jan Hendrik Witte
• Everything You Wanted to Know About Blockchain But Were Afraid to Ask by Mike McDonald
• What is Blockchain Technology? A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners (BlockGeeks)

Videos

• Understand the Blockchain in Two Minutes (YouTube)
• How the Blockchain is Changing Money and Business (TED.com)
• How the Blockchain Will Radically Transform the Economy (TED.com)

MOOCs

• The Basics of Blockchain: A Beginner's Guide to Blockchain (Udemy)
• Learn Blockchain Technology: A Beginner's Guide to Blockchain (Udemy)

New Video CLE: The Ethics of Cloud Computing

The Legal Tech Institute at the Harris County Law Library has released a new video CLE. The Ethics of Cloud Computing: Using Cloud Storage and Applications in Your Practice is the latest in our Learning On-Demand CLE library that lets you earn CLE credit in Texas while staying up to date on legal tech. Visit the Law Library's Legal Tech Institute page for more on our legal tech learning opportunities.

Legal Tech and Legal Innovation Reading Lists

For Today's Tech Tuesday blog post, we at the Harris County Law Library are offering a list of lists, three compilations of the best titles on legal tech and legal innovation with a few additional recommendations from the Law Library staff. 

The 10 Best Legal Tech and Legal Innovation Books: "...get familiar with legal tech, entrepreneurial lawyerism, legal innovation and the future of law. Check out this (non-exhaustive) list of favorite books...to understand and explore which key drivers and developments are about to change the legal industry and our society in general."

A Legal Innovation Reading List: "For someone new to legal innovation or innovation in general, [this short list] provides a solid starting point for understanding the central concepts and language around building a new and innovative business."

Legal Design Lab Reading List: "This curated library of readings -- books, blogs, articles, and more -- is for those who want to be on the forefront of legal innovation."

The following are suggested titles from the Harris County Law Library collection. They focus less on innovation and the lawyer-as-entrepreneur and more on improving your legal tech skills and the efficiency of your legal practice using technology.

The 2016 Solo and Small Firm Legal Technology Guide (2015)

Flying Solo: A Survival Guide For the Solo And Small Firm Lawyer (2014)

iPad In One Hour For Litigators (2015)

Paperless In One Hour For Lawyers (2014)

Texas Small Firm Practice Tools (2015)

PowerNotes: Organize Your Research In a Whole New Way

The Harris County Law Library recently discovered a new browser extension for Chrome that allows you to capture, customize, and organize your research in a more efficient and accessible way. Instead of highlighting content, cutting and pasting it into a Word document, adding notes, and then returning to your source material to capture additional content or the URL of the website you are visiting, PowerNotes lets you perform all of these tasks in one self-contained platform.

For a limited time, throughout the beta testing phase, download the PowerNotes Chrome browser extension for free. Try out the only online research platform that saves what's important and keeps it organized for you in customized project folders, which you create yourself for the various legal matters you manage. Read more about the features that make PowerNotes the new must-have legal research management tool, and download it for your Chrome browser today. 

"Techno-Legal" Practitioners and Lawyers Learning to Code

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Several months ago, we at the Harris County Law Library featured a post on Ex Libris Juris called Coding for Lawyers -- Novelty or Necessity?. It explored the arguments for and against lawyers learning to code, recognizing that some basic skills in practical technology are an asset.

At least one law school is beginning to offer coding classes as part of its curriculum. According to a recent New York Times article, Get With the Programming, Georgetown University Law Center offered a computer programming course last semester on an experimental basis. Demand for the course was overwhelming, and five additional courses were added this spring. The professor who teaches the course, Paul Ohm, recognizes that his law students are not going to become programmers, but, he feels, coding skills will help them to be better lawyers. And the trend seems to be catching on.

A course based on the Georgetown model, will soon be offered at the University of New South Wales. Sponsored by Gilbert + Tobin, an Australian corporate law firm, the new course will help develop lawyers into "techo-legal" practitioners as they "learn about the automation of legal tasks and advice, how to design and build legal information systems, and use technology to generate legal documents and create and code user-facing, law-related apps."

As demand for lawyers with software skills increases, expect to see more law schools -- and perhaps law firms -- offer coding classes in the near future.