By *Jeff Aresty

What a privilege to be able to work with LexUniversal and the global network of law firms organized by Ordelio Sette over 20 years ago. At that time, the internet was coming into its own, but little did any of know the future of online communication.  At the time, many in the legal profession debated the legal efficacy of digital signatures as a means to replace ‘wet’ signatures on paper.  It would take a few more years, and, inconsistent rules passed by different jurisdictions regarding their efficacy, when industry said enough and began adopting tools like Docusign before lawyers would ‘see the handwriting on the ‘electronic’ wall and accept a new way to do business. But the law firms in LexUniversal were always ahead of the legal profession and found ways to embrace internet technology and global networking to build trusted relationships in the online world.  And now, we are on the brink of a new era, the beginning of trusted communities in cyberspace.  I’m certain that LexUniversal and its network of global law firms will continue to lead the way.

Ready or not, we are all creating a new society in cyberspace. Rapid and far-reaching advancements in digital technology over the past 20 years have laid the foundation for the development and the glob­alization of the world's economy, as well as the formation of new, never­-thought-of-before communities across the globe. Before these communities arose, the lack of a harmonized trade law structure was a key constraint LexUniversal’s attorneys had to overcome to conclude international business deals.  Expert in overcoming both communications and cultural barriers, the politics of tariffs and transportation logistics, the lawyers of the LexUniversal network worked hard for their clients.  They secured contracts, protected property rights, and worked through the differences in legal systems based on the differing legal foundations of both civil and common laws to protect their clients’ interest in the early days of the internet.  And now, the era of the blockchain has come. It will introduce self-sovereign identities, smart contracts, and online dispute resolution as new tools to protect client interests; and, I am certain that the LexUniversal network of attorneys will be leading the legal profession forward in the new stages of our digital age.

Understanding the challenges of the digital age and the shifts of economic and political power inherent in this structure is of critical importance to the international legal profession, which has the opportunity to bring the rule of law to the electronic frontier in cyberspace. It has not been easy.  In the first twenty five years of internet communications, the legal profession challenged the use of digital signatures despite many attempts to harmonize rules.  Once intermediaries to internet communities saw the lack of harmonization, they took it upon themselves to create online identities which were unique to their own communities.  The result was that each individual started with simple log ins as their online identity, but ultimately each of us ended up with an online presence of multiple identities created through different websites, apps, and constantly changing social media platforms.  We had the possibility of unlimited online identities, a threat to legal order and an open invitation to hackers everywhere to steal our identity attributes. 

But the distributed ledger technology which is the foundation of the blockchain has ushered in a new era for secure and trusted online identity, and, this will change the method for granting online identity forever.  Engineers have created a new form of identity called self-sovereign identity with the ability to create a secure identity ecosystem that will completely replace the woefully inadequate one we have today.  A major reason the legal profession has been so reluctant to accept digital signatures as a replacement to wet signatures is that there was no trustworthy way to transfer the notion of “who” we are dealing with in contracts or in any online interactions from the physical to the online world.

But now, the engineers have come up with new ways and architectures to enable each one of us to claim control over our online identities without intermediaries.  By itself, the technology is powerful.  But at its source, the question of the trustworthiness of each person’s legal identity still has to be based on some system of global governance. We do not have that global governance in place yet today.

Oth­ers have already taken initial steps on the global plane. There are many new international participants from civil society who are acting globally. Working with global legal networks such as LexUniversal, trustworthy systems of governance for online identities can be built.  And, as we do this work, new societies will emerge based on trust and legal order.  And, as in every society that has pre­ceded this one, we know that the new one needs order for it to be just. As guardians of the rule of law, the legal profession has the responsi­bility to reinvent law in cyberspace.  I am certain that the law firms who are members of the LexUniversal global legal network will lead the way.

*Jeffrey M. Aresty is a lawyer from Waco, Texas, licensed to practice law in Massachusetts. He has practiced international business and cyberspace law for 45 years. During that time, he joined and helped lead a global online network of lawyers in 35 countries, founded a new media company (which distributes interactive web based training programs for building and sustaining trusted online communities), and led the founding of a virtual bar association(www.internetbar.org).