Document Certification on Blockchain

Did you ever lose a contract? Did it ever occur that a counterparty of yours disputed the signature date or the content of a contract? Blockchain is right there to resolve these problems.

There are zillions of small legal transactions concluded every day on planet Earth. People are buying items and services from each other, they conclude rental agreements and lend small amounts of money. Sometimes these deals are not documented at all. Even if they are, many times this is done in a poor way, and the related documents are not properly archived. Blockchain is the perfect vehicle for the archivation and certification of these deals.

Intentionally, I am not talking now about automated deal execution and/or smart contracts here. I am a blockchain enthusiast lawyer, and I believe that many aspects of the legal profession may utilize the power of distributed immutable ledgers in the close future. But also as an acting attorney I know that real life contracts are not simply “programs” that simply run down from the start to the end automatically. Many times life produces small events that alter the realization of legal transactions, and I doubt that all of these events can be programmed into an automated contract execution program. There are vis maior (force majeure) conditions or simply personal aspects that would be hard to burn into an automated contact execution protocol. Automated contract realisation is a complex solution, where software developers and lawyers will need to resolve many open issues in the future.

Getting back to archivation and certification of legal contracts, we can firmly state however that blockchain is a great, working and existing solution. Connected with proper KYC processes, it is possible to register the parties, the content and the exact signature time of a deal in a distributed ledger. This is in itself a huge leap forward from paper documents. Just think about how complex it is today to properly certify the validity of a document between different jurisdictions. If you have ever been involved in diplomatic certification or apostille certification of documents, then you know what I am talking about.

The immutable nature of a blockchain or a distributed ledger provides a great opportunity for the legal industry and also for governments to enhance the certification and verification of documents and everyday legal deals.

Do you like the idea of registering deals on the blockchain? Do you not? Do you agree with me that contract registration and contract execution are two different topics. Feel free to argue with me or share your comments in the related thread hereunder.

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