Most legal departments and law firms face challenges and are pressurized by heavy amounts of legal paperwork for clients. Processing and analyzing legal data for building a case is becoming a burden for legal firms. The kind of legal data handled by these firms is sensitive. Even a single word of compromise can lead to a severe loss of an organization’s reputation. Due to digital advent, the risks of data fraud, leakages and breaches have increased. Ensuring the security of these legal data is necessary. Blockchain technology can play a significant role in the total process of documentation. With the help of a document authentication QR code, users can efficiently secure their documents.
What is blockchain technology?
Blockchain technology is an immutable, shared & distributed ledger of recording information in a way which makes it hard or almost impossible to cheat, hack or alter the system. This digital ledger is distributed through the entire computer system network on blockchain. Blockchain technology is the structure which stores every transactional record also called “blocks”. Each transaction in this distributed ledger is fully authorized through the owner’s digital signature which safeguards valuable data from tampering. It leads to high security in keeping them on the blockchain.
This technology has revolutionized the financial sector. Even education institutes are adopting blockchain in terms of securing digital certificates, educational certificate verification and many more. The legal sector is not away from the impact of blockchain technology.
What important role does blockchain play in the legal sector?
As mentioned earlier, the secure, tamper-proof and stable nature of blockchain is helping legal professionals like lawyers to fully leverage this technology to the optimum level for solving many legal issues. The major issue experienced by this sector is a lack of security and colossal paperwork. Blockchain can streamline the huge paperwork and offer security. Varied use-cases in legal sectors include land registry, smart contracts, intellectual property rights etc.
a) Makes the legal industry much more accessible
Legal professionals can implement blockchain technology to simplify and well-organize every bit of transactional work, store legal documents in tamper-proof ways, sign digitally and many more. With the usage of automated contract management and smart contracts, they can lessen much time in personalizing, preparing and managing law documents. So, the cost is saved and these cost savings can pass to customers. Blockchain plays a vital role in cutting down customer complexity and helps in lessening high legal fees.
b) Offers transparency
The nature of distributed ledger produces the shared ledger which becomes easily accessible to every party to an agreement. The contracts based on blockchain technology have no place for misinterpretation. Even non-technologists can enter into the transactions.
You can generate e-certificates and secure them. You can also verify them in need through e-certificate blockchain verification.
c) Diminishes cost in the legal sector
When legal manual tasks are performed, it takes time and increases cost but the implementation of blockchain can reduce long hours of drafting legal documents. The cost passes down to customers and lawyer fees come down. Smart contracts can amplify transactions among the parties and ease the whole operation.
d) Makes the sector more methodical and efficient
Blockchain can automate, secure and streamline most processes in the legal sector without any loss of judicial authority. If you optimize the features of blockchain technology, the legal sector can become more methodical and efficient resulting in productive operation with lowering cost & friction.
e) Strengthens legal data integrity
You must know that any documents, especially legal documents are hotcakes for cyber criminals and hackers who want to seek profit from confidential data. Rather than emailing or sharing valuable data here and there, legal professionals can select blockchain technology to store sensitive legal information. As we all know, blockchain is distributed and decentralized and this elevates data integrity. If any evidence is changed, the “hash” value won’t match and let users know a change has happened.
What are several use cases of blockchain in the legal sector?
There are various use cases of blockchain technology in the legal sector. Some of the vital ones are:
a) Smart contracts
Smart contracts are programs stored on the blockchain which run when some conditions are met. These are self-executing contracts through which the requirement of which brokers and agents can be eliminated.
b) Electronic signatures
Signing on the blockchain can be less expensive & electronic signatures bring users efficiency, speed and cost-savings
c) Property deeds & Land registries
Blockchain technology has made property deeds and land registries more simple. This technology is also boosting the buying & selling process of properties.
We hope you can understand how important a role blockchain plays in the legal sector. Blockchain can well-organize and simplify the different processes of the legal industry. Legal professionals and customers can get advantages if legal firms implement blockchain technology. Just like educational certificate verification, legal document verification can become simple. In the future, more and more opportunities to adopt blockchain are waiting.
