Several law firms and technology companies have agreed to work together to launch a public, permissioned blockchain network, which aims to redefine how legal products and services support the networked economy.

The Agreements Network brings together law firms BakerHostetler, LegalBono and ErdosIP and FinTech firms Clause, Crowdcube, LexPredict, Libra, Mattereum, Monax, Rymedi, TransparentNode and Wolfram Blockchain Labs.

In the networked economy, legal contracting happens less on paper and moves to devices and software, read a statement. Using the Agreements Network, lawyers and companies can design and operate contracts to perform legal jobs, such as contract management and collecting, storing and proving evidence.

The network includes a legal reference layer - a novel tool for tracking important information like chain of custody for assets - while also supporting the creation of new products in legal contracting.

Its founding participants will collaborate to validate, refine and test the technology, as well as working on any challenges to adoption and scaling of legal product solutions to meet the explosion of demand for legal ‘smart contracts’.

The statement explained that such legal products work by executing simple legal functions automatically at the network level and can be marketed and sold across a global peer-to-peer network.

“As the world moves ever further down the path of digitisation the legal functions of most businesses are being forced to migrate and update their systems,” stated Casey Kuhlman, chief executive of Monax. “This is, fundamentally, a good thing. It will eventually reduce errors, increase certainty, decrease risk, and streamline operations at a core level.”

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