Question: What do the Iranian national football team, NFTs, Hotel Rwanda and tennis great, Andy Murray have in common? Answer: Stevie Ghiassi, Co-founder of Legaler and Legaler Aid. And my guest this week! In this episode, Stevie chats with me about his unlikely journey from running a chain of souvenir shops to becoming a legal tech entrepreneur. He also talks about the important work that Legaler Aid is doing, and ways in which legal tech and blockchain have helped them pivot after Covid took away traditional fundraising streams. Yet again we’re seeing innovative ways that cryptocurrency and blockchain are being…

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a multi-billion-dollar movement that may end up changing the way we all bank Imagine a time where banks are not needed. Think about all the financial instruments we use today — currency, loans, insurance, bonds, credit cards, stocks, futures, options, interest bearing accounts — being converted to a new model, one that doesn’t require a traditional banking institution. This is happening now. For those of you who sit on the bleeding edge of technology with me, this has been looming for a few years. However, I have purposely held off writing about it until the data…

What do you enjoy about your Amazon experience? Likely everything. The company’s success is derived from a few simple words of company CEO Jeff Bezos’ ethos: “Delight your customers.” Yet, when you think about innovation, what does that look like inside a law firm? To be honest, it’s probably very different than perhaps it should look. These were the headline topics of discussion at last week’s Legal Geek Uncertain Decade Summit held virtually with Mark Cohen, Executive Chairman of the Digital Legal Exchange, and Richard Susskind, President of the Society for Computers and Law. In their respective lectures, they laid…

Interview with Joseph Raczynski, written by Michelle Worrall Tilton Kanas City Metropolitan Bar Association Attorneys look to precedent to solve today’s legal problems. “Steeped in tradition” is how we often describe the legal profession.  As result, it’s no surprise that there is inherent tension between emerging technology and the legal profession. The American Bar Association’s 2020 TechReport, which surveys firms and tracks attorney use of technology in their practices, reported that only 7% of attorneys are using tech tools, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), for document review and research.  Firms with more than 100 attorneys are more likely to use…

Lots of fun this week on The Hearing Podcast with my colleague Andrew Fletcher, Director at the Thomson Reuters Labs.  If you enjoy uncovering what the future (and the now) of the legal industry might look like, take a listen.  We toss aside the fluff, and meet at the cross section of AI, APIs, Design Thinking, Innovation, and how it all impacts the legal industry.  Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ep-75-andrew-fletcher-thomson-reuters-labs/id1389813956?i=1000517742116 or https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9wb3J0YWwtYXBpLnRoaXNpc2Rpc3RvcnRlZC5jb20veG1sL3RoZS1oZWFyaW5n/episode/aHR0cDovL2F1ZGlvLnRoaXNpc2Rpc3RvcnRlZC5jb20vcmVwb3NpdG9yeS9hdWRpby9lcGlzb2Rlcy9FcDc1X0FuZHJld19GbGV0Y2hlcl9taXhkb3duLTE2MTc5NzM0ODgyNTk4NDIyNzctTXpJek9USXRPRFkxT1RBNE56TT0ubXAz?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiA4PjTlJLwAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg…

Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski The bleeding edge of the legal industry is now building interfaces at the intersection of code and law through computational contracts. These computational contracts (sometime called smart contracts), according to Stanford University, are a universal Contract Definition Language that will allow terms and conditions to be represented in machine-understandable way. As a result, computers will be able to process and reason over the contracts automatically with a guaranteed degree of accuracy. The Stanford project sees this as not only a significant reduction of legal transaction costs, but it also opens a variety of…

In a two-part series, we will look at Non-Fungible Tokens, explaining what they are and how they will impact numerous industries; and how decentralized finance (DeFi) is critical to understanding NFT’s importance within the legal industry. Originally published on the Legal Executive Institute. By Joseph Raczynski Welcome to the early days of where blockchain goes mainstream, and the legal industry needs to take notice. While Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have been around for several years — remember CryptoKitties or even the original NFT, called CryptoPunks? Even if you don’t, NFTs have officially exploded into popular culture, begging the question:…

Originally published on Thomson Reuters, Legal Institute. By Joseph Raczynski The pandemic was “the great equalizer” for the legal industry, combining the good from before with the great from the now. A recent half-day virtual event, Legal Geek Presents Thomson Reuters Takeover, underscored this idea and offered a glimpse into the latest legal insights on the future of the legal profession and the impact of the opportunities arising in legal technology. Lizzy Duffy, Senior Director of Global Client Services at Thomson Reuters Acritas, gave a sharp keynote that cut to the heart of the changes we all experienced during…

From the producer: Here at The Hearing HQ we’ve really missed travelling. So being whisked (virtually) to Buenos Aires for this week’s episode was a real treat! Meet Joe’s guest, Federico Ast, the CEO and founder of Kleros. He’s deeply intelligent, thoughtful and one hell of an aggravator in the world of justice. Federico has a philosophy-centered approach to improving judicial systems around the world, and talks to Joe about how deliberative democracy can fast-track access to justice. Kleros is an online dispute resolution system based on blockchain, crowdsourcing and game theory. We hear how Federico has used his experience…

From the producer: On The Hearing, we’ve talked to people at the top of their game about their experiences of lockdown. We’ve gained advice from experts on how businesses can best weather these unprecedented times. And this week Joe chats to Karim Sabbidine, an associate at Thompson Hine, about what COVID-19 means when you’re at the legal coalface. Pre-pandemic, life as a New York litigator was a heady mix of high pressure and excitement – tiring yet fun. But for Karim it quickly transitioned to being cramped in a small apartment with two equally busy flatmates, while trying to navigate…

Published on Lifewire Written by Michelai Graham – Interview with Joseph Raczynski Facebook is scaling back its ambitious plans to move into the cryptocurrency sector while users on the platform aren’t showing much confidence in the site’s new addition. The media giant will likely launch its smaller scale Libra cryptocurrency project as soon as January. Libra was originally supposed to be a new currency backed by fiat money (a currency established as money by the government) and securities (tradable financial assets). Libra will now work as a stable coin, meaning it won’t fluctuate in value as it’s pegged to something…

From the producer: You may have watched as Mark Zuckerberg explained the internet to Congress in a way that felt a bit unnecessary. Well, this episode is sort of the opposite of that. Joe Raczynski is joined by legal and mathematical macroeconomics genius Doug Pepe, to take us through blockchain, tokens and cryptocurrency in a way that’s genuinely enlightening. The legal industry is sometimes accused of not keeping up, but we know that’s not true. Lawyers are occupying this space now. Their clients are very active and they have a crucial role to play in the serious policy issues being…