BYU Law Becomes 100th Organization to Join the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium

PROVO, Utah, Oct. 3, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BYU Law, a leading national law school focused on innovation, is excited to announce that it is joining the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium (GLBC). The GLBC is, with the addition of BYU Law, comprised of 100 large companies, law firms, software companies and universities working together in the development of standards to govern the use of blockchain technology in the legal field.

"Working with the GLBC is the latest step in the Law School's dedication to legal technology innovation," said Gordon Smith, Dean of BYU Law. "Our curriculum, scholarly research, and collaborations are adapting to the technological changes that shape the world our students will enter when they graduate."

BYU Law's Transactional Design Project, which is spearheading BYU Law's collaboration with GLBC, is dedicated to studying both well-established and disruptive forms of market infrastructure. The Project is an incubator for new studies and research methods, acting as a platform for academic and private sector collaboration. These collaborations take multiple forms.

"Our focus at BYU is on producing cutting edge research on the latest developments in global markets, so we can provide guidance to policymakers and introduce students to the technologies that will be shaping global commerce for decades to come," said BYU Law Professor Matthew Jennejohn, an expert on the relationship between legal institutions and economic growth who leads the Transactional Design Project. He also partners with the Accord Project and the Legal Working Group of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

In addition to developing new scholarship, and building a strong network of transactional design scholars and thought leaders, BYU Law is committed to equipping its students to operate in an increasingly tech-driven legal landscape. Curricular offerings now include courses on blockchain and cryptocurrency, information privacy, and legal design, as well as seminars on coding and legal technology and an open lecture series on the future of law.

"We are excited to have BYU Law involved in the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium," said David Fisher, a Director and Founder of the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium. "BYU Law brings a wealth of insight and innovation in legal technology and its impact on some of the modern global economy's most pressing issues. We look forward to collaborating with BYU Law to further the consortium's work."

In 2018, BYU Law hosted the first Winter Deals Conference for legal scholars and thought leaders from across markets, an inaugural Blockchain Summit for professionals and lawyers in the blockchain space, and the Utah location of the first-ever Global Legal Hackathon. The 2019 BYU Blockchain Summit will bring together preeminent scholars, practitioners and thought leaders to further the conversation of how blockchain technology is transforming markets, institutions, digital relationships and civic life. For more information about the Blockhain Summit, visit http://blockchain.byu.edu/.

About the Global Legal Blockchain Consortium 
The Global Legal Blockchain Consortium is comprised of 100 large companies, law firms, software companies and universities that have joined together to develop standards to govern the use of blockchain technology in the business of law. For blockchain to serve the needs of its users, its governance must facilitate both security and efficiency. The consortium enables experts in both legal requirements and industry needs to come to harmonize the way that the legal industry interacts with multiple blockchain technologies. For more information visit https://legalconsortium.org/.

About BYU Law School
Founded in 1971, the J. Reuben Clark Law School (BYU Law) has grown into one of the nation's leading law schools – recognized for innovative research and teaching in social change, transactional design, entrepreneurship, corpus linguistics, criminal justice and religious freedom. The Law School has more than 6,000 alumni serving in communities around the world. In its most recent rankings, SoFi ranked BYU Law as the #1 best-value US law school in their 2017 Return on Education Law School Ranking. For more information visit http://www.law.byu.edu/.

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SOURCE BYU Law