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blockchain for legal services

Blockchain has emerged as a transformational technology in various industries over the last few years. When it comes to legal services, blockchain technologies can support the privacy, security and document management requirements vital to law firms, legal departments, and attorneys.

Here are some ways blockchains can revolutionize legal services and offer a multitude of benefits to enhance efficiency, security and trust in legal operations worldwide.

Smart Contracts

Blockchain technology incorporating smart contracts, for example, can automate the process of creating, executing and managing contracts. Smart contracts, which are self-executing contracts with the terms and conditions directly written into code, can be stored and executed on the blockchain. This hard-coded contract management eliminates the need for intermediaries, reduces the risk of fraud, and ensures transparency.

Smart contracts also have the potential to revolutionize dispute resolution within the legal system. In the event of a disputed agreement or terms, the transparency and auditability of smart contracts enable quick and efficient resolution. Parties involved can rely on the immutable records stored on the blockchain to validate the final state of the contract and ensure fair outcomes.

“The advent of blockchain technology and smart contracts presents a unique opportunity for the legal industry to evolve and adapt to the demands of the digital age,” notes a recent CityLife article. Legal professionals can thus benefit from using blockchain technology that enables the creation, storage, and execution of smart contracts, ensuring secure and tamper-proof agreements, while advancing their client services.

Immutable Document Management

Legal services heavily rely on accurate and trustworthy evidence. Blockchain’s immutability and transparency make it the ideal solution for managing legal documents and data in digital formats. By providing a tamper-proof record of all contract-related activities, blockchain technology can help to ensure that all parties are held accountable for their actions and to their commitments. This can be especially important in cases of complex, multi-party contracts, where it can be difficult to track and manage all of the different activities and obligations.

Blockchain “technology generates a systematic, untampered audit trail of the history of any action taking place in a document, which can be viewed in a history tree, providing a more superior history and audit trail than anything else that currently exists,” explains Accenture. “The digitization of paper-based contracts onto the blockchain holds the potential to revolutionize the way contracts are prepared, transacted, amended, stored and complied with.”

The legal industry rests on maintaining accurate and trustworthy records and evidence. Blockchain’s immutability and transparency make it an ideal technology for document management and evidence preservation for law firms, legal departments, and attorneys.

Digital Identity Verification

In one more example, identity verification is a fundamental aspect of work done in legal services, whether it involves client onboarding, compliance, notarization, or other agreements between strangers. Blockchain technology can streamline these processes by enabling decentralized and secure digital identity verification through blockchain-based identity solutions.

“Blockchain-based identity has the potential to offer increased security, privacy, and efficiency in various industries, including banking, supply chain management, and voting,” notes Jay Speakman in a new Be In Crypto article. “By creating a decentralized and tamper-proof identity application, blockchain can reduce the risk of identity theft and fraud while providing users with more control over their personal data.”

With such technologies, individuals control their personal information via blockchain, granting access to specific details only when they choose to share. This not only enhances privacy and creates a relationship of trust, but as mentioned above, can greatly reduce identity theft and fraud.

ZorroSign For Legal Services

ZorroSign’s data security platform built on blockchain technology is just what your legal team needs to take the privacy and security of your law firm to the next level. To learn more about how ZorroSign supports attorneys, and how blockchains elevate legal services, visit our Legal industry page or contact ZorroSign today!

The way that the legal industry conducts business has changed drastically over the last few years, foremost due to the shift during the COVID-19 pandemic to a remote lifestyle. A recent survey by the American Bar Association shows that more than half of all attorneys are now working from home almost exclusively. This switch to remote work has caused the legal industry to look towards technology to move the bulk of their processes and workflows online.

With that industry shift in mind, here are three ways that ZorroSign helps to law firms, legal departments, and attorneys worldwide to thrive in an online environment!

Automation

Lawyers are often swamped with paperwork and the hassle of printing, signing, and scanning documents. While much of this work is important to the successful operation of legal services, future-thinking law firms and legal departments are identifying repetitive, manual processes and incorporating automation to drastically improve their workflows. This allows attorneys to spend more time on client development and for staff to become more productive.

Incorporating technology into your legal service workflows can expedite operations, accelerate growth, and increase the value of the services delivered to clients. When used strategically, technology can also free up your teams from mundane tasks and enable them to apply their expertise to higher-value work. As a result, law firms and legal departments become more efficient, innovative, competitive, and profitable.

ZorroSign’s blockchain platform allows firms to build and automate templates and approval workflows, ensuring compliance with business regulations while streamlining processes from a single dashboard. Our contract lifecycle management (CLM) capabilities support automation and help move attorneys to digital record-keeping, digital communications, and digital chains-of-custody.

Expanding Privacy Regulations

Gartner predicts that by the end of 2023, modern privacy laws will cover the personal information of 75% of the world’s population. It is also expected that more state legislatures will enact privacy laws similar to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which gives consumers more control over the personal information that businesses collect about them. Eventually the United States can expect a law that mirrors the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—one of the toughest privacy and security laws in the world.

The increased demand for privacy has been driven by individuals’ demands for improved protection of their personally identifying information (PII), healthcare records, autonomy, and digital data privacy. Expanding regulations have pushed organizations to take the necessary steps to support data sharing, while preserving the privacy of those that they are working with and who are within their organization. All in all, organizations that choose to prioritize privacy have an opportunity to win greater loyalty and more business from their customers.

So how can ZorroSign help?

ZorroSign was created with the privacy of users in mind. Built from the ground up on blockchain technology for a zero-trust digital ecosystem, we deliver top notch security that has evolved to meet the legal enforceability needed in a court of law. ZorroSign is already compliant with CCPA and the EU’s GDPR policy—plus many Canadian, Indian, UAE, and United States data protection and privacy standards, ISO 27001 certification, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) SOC 2 Type I audit, and International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) No. 3402 Type II audited.

For the growing list of ZorroSign privacy and security standards, visit our recent blog on global compliance.

Transfer to the Cloud

While storing information on a hosted cloud server is not a new concept, the legal industry has been slow to migrate its data because of the security concerns that this presented. Telecommute work, however, has pushed legal organizations towards cloud solutions to better connect remote workers. The cloud’s cost-effective delivery of near-unlimited storage, paired with technology like blockchains, bridges the gap between the risk of remote connections and the need for elevated data security.

ZorroSign’s multi-chain blockchain platform can be deployed in a public, private, hybrid, or on-premise cloud, while ensuring your data and privacy and security needs are met:

  • Our standard deployment is on Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud computing network
  • In our private cloud configuration, all your data and the ZorroSign application run in a private and secure cloud network dedicated to your organization
  • In a hybrid cloud configuration, your data can be stored on either ZorroSign data centers or in the private cloud, while the ZorroSign platform and applications run on their standard public cloud configurations
  • On-premise deployments require your law firm or department to manage and maintain your own data centers, but gain the benefits of unlimited API calls and total control over identity access management (IAM), data privacy and security, and data integrity processes

To learn more about how ZorroSign serves the Legal Industry, please contact us or start your 14-day free trial subscription today!