Smart Contracts Session 9 Transcript

Transcript

So you've learned a bit about contracts and you've learned something about smart contracts and how they

fit in.

There may be more of these options.

So are you now a lawyer.

Well you're not a lawyer in the sense that you don't have a professional qualification.

But I hope that you've got some insight into the way that lawyers look at these questions.

So what we're trying to do as lawyers is not get in the way of things but say how do we analyze the

relationship.

What relationship do these two parties have.

Is it the relationship that they intend to have.

If we're entering into a contract binding these two parties do we know through the contract they both

intend to be bound on those terms with the court sanction sitting behind them.

Lawyers are trained to do close reading.

So when it comes to this new area of smart contract audits we have training to say how do you change

this writing into this code.

What's the detail of the writing.

What are the implications of the writing.

Where have we seen provisions like this in practice in the past work in a way that's not quite that

was intended.

So how do we need to change those provisions how do we need to make sure that when the smart contract

coding is done these things are built in so that predictable failures don't become failures in the system

that there are work arounds built into the system so that the job of the lawyer isn't to give this technical

advice and write memos and reports so much as ensure that the parties are getting what they want have

good communication between them to understand what's on both sides and don't end up in court because

there is a clear understanding and when things go wrong there are some fail safes and work arounds built

into the relationship between the parties the lawyer's role is getting more interesting because it is

fusing somewhat into the role of the coders the risk managers the business process people.

So all of these groups that used to work sequentially in transactions and projects are now starting

to work as a whole.

That probably means that even if you're not a lawyer if you have an interest in this area you will work

with lawyers.

So I hope you know a bit more about how to look at the questions yourself from a legal perspective and

a bit more about when one of your colleagues or someone else on the transaction who is a lawyer is making

points.

You might be able to see where they're coming from a bit more than you were at the start of the session.

Thanks for listening and that's it for me.