Please describe your proposed solution.
<u>Web3 Legal Hub</u>
Many Project Catalyst funded projects, and Web3 projects in general, need legal support and guidance.
While new technology is exciting for its developers, the legal field is often left playing catch up. This makes it difficult for projects to find adequate legal support because not enough lawyers have been trained to support Web3 organizations. Also, it may be difficult to locate Web3-friendly lawyers that already exist, and even if they are located, these lawyers may be unwilling to take on projects because they lack the capacity to take on additional clients.
To help solve these issues, we’ll:
- Organize a webinar series on Web3 legal topics
- Create a directory of Web3-friendly lawyers
The Web3 Legal Hub’s impact will:
- Grow the number of Web3-friendly lawyers available to projects hoping to operate in the United States
- Provide some legal guidance to projects
- Provide projects with an easy way to locate Web3-friendly lawyers
I. Webinar Series on Web3 Legal Topics
A. Web3 Education for Lawyers
The webinar series will provide an overview of relevant legal issues facing Web3 projects. Each webinar will feature lawyers who are experts in their field. We would offer multi-state, participatory 2-hour/unit continuing legal education (“CLE”) courses.
In the United States, each state oversees requirements for licensure as there is no singular federal licensing body, and each state requires CLE credits to retain one’s license to practice law. CLE’s are used to keep lawyers updated on legal issues as well as educating them on new legal topics. Each state oversees course accreditation.
We’ll seek course accreditation with the most important jurisdictions related to cryptocurrency and blockchain: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, New York, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
B. Legal Issues Covered by the Webinar Series
- Business Organization
- Token Sales
- Tax
- AML / KYC
- SAAS
- Copyright
- Stablecoins
- Smart Contracts
C. Legal Webinars Benefit Funded Proposers
And, while the live webinars are geared to the legal community, the webinars will be recorded and made available on the Legal Hub for accessibility by funded proposers. The legal information in the webinars will help Web3 project teams by providing some legal guidance on operating in the United States.
II. Directory of Web3-Friendly Lawyers
The leading lawyer directory (avvo.com) fails to cover relevant practice areas like startups, privacy, blockchain and cryptocurrency law.
Not only will the webinars provide important information for lawyers, it will also serve to bring them into the hub, where they can upload their profile and practice specialties into the directory.
Through additional research, in-webinar surveys, and follow-up with webinar attendees, we’ll collect a list of lawyers who are ready to support Web3 projects.
This directory will be made available to the Project Catalyst community to make it easier for funded proposers to locate legal support.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
<u>Legal Webinar Series Aligns with the Challenge KPIs</u>
Use Case: The legal webinar series will serve funded proposals with projects that will operate in the United States.
Impact: The webinar series will provide training to lawyers in order to increase the number of attorneys available for funded proposals hoping to operate or find investors in the United States. The webinar series also provides direct legal guidance to funded proposals.
Scalability: Making the recorded webinars available on Youtube means that more people will be able to benefit from the webinars. The directory is scalable as an infinite number of attorneys may be included.
Adaptability: Webinars will be able to be accessed anywhere in the world. This would help funded proposers, and also legal professionals outside of the U.S. provide general guidance to projects that may be operating outside of the U.S. as they consider operating within the U.S.
<u>Marketing Plan</u>
LinkedIn Events - A 2020 American Bar Association survey found that LinkedIn rated as the social media platform most popular among lawyers (link to article). Thus, the live webinars will be marketed as LinkedIn Events.
Sponsored LinkedIn Events advertisement
Partnership Outreach - connecting with law firms and legal associations.
Existing Project Catalyst Channels - we’ll outreach to existing channels like Catalyst School, Cardano Women, and Catalyst Swarm to help spread the word of the recorded webinars availability on Youtube.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
<u>Challenges and Risks</u>
Risk #1: Recruiting knowledgeable Web3 legal experts
Mitigation: Relying on the strength of our network to connect with legal experts. And it’s why our marketing strategy includes partner outreach and paid advertisement – to connect with the great possible number of attorneys interested in the subject.
Risk #2: Attendance
Mitigation: We’re hoping that providing lawyers the live webinar series free of charge will incentivize attendance. (Continuing legal education courses can cost anywhere from $25 - $350 per credit/hour).
Risk #3: Content obsolescence
Mitigation: While changing laws are a reality, CLEs are constructed to cover foundational issues. When laws change they usually expand on existing law, not nullify it. This means that in terms of spotting potential legal issues, they still be useful, even if there was an update in the laws. The legal guidance in these webinars is not meant to replace working with a lawyer (keep in mind that it’s a lawyer’s job to keep abreast of changes to the law), we're going to have to build into our UI/UX a way of communicating major updates.
Risk #4: Website maintenance
Mitigation: The future plan is to shift to paid content for updated webinars for lawyers, while continuing to make content free to funded proposers. The site will also likely include some kind of donation and/or advertisement model. Finally, in terms of long term maintenance, we’ll consider pursuing acquisition by or partnering with a law firm.