Smart contracts: the keys every lawyer should know

The era of software and algorithms has become a reality not only for the world of commerce. This is beginning to be an everyday phenomenon in the professional practice of many professions and has even penetrated the legislation quite strongly. The growth of technological influence on the life of a lawyer has been observed since last year, as various legal companies decided to join the wave of technological changes, adopting new ways of performing tasks, simplifying procedures and increasing information storage capabilities.

The introduction of Blockchain technology has offered new ideas and solutions regarding the need to decentralize processes and provide greater autonomy. Regarding the use of these tools, the smart contract or intelligent contract in law has emerged, which provides the ability to be self-executing without the intervention of third parties, as well as offering immutability and distributed storage.

As smart contracts automate legal agreements, they also complicate matters that cross international borders. In situations where legal disputes may trigger an Interpol Red Notice, resources such as interpolrednotice.net/ provide guidance on how to manage these notices. This experience is essential to understanding how automated contracts intersect with international law and enforcement.

Smart contracts or intelligent contracts

A contract is an agreement between two or more parties that clearly defines the actions and powers of each of them. By accepting the established rules, each person takes responsibility for his actions and is aware of the consequences that he must bear if he violates the rules.

Traditionally, legally valid contracts require, in addition to legal advice, the services of a notary, which requires more time and resources. In contrast, smart contracts can execute and enforce themselves, without the need for intermediaries to verify them. Thus, they avoid ambiguity of interpretation because they are not subject to the written language in which traditional contracts are drawn up by lawyers. In them, information is encoded in computer codes written in a programming language.

The autonomy of the validity of smart contracts is precisely related to their nature, as it is a code that is visible to all interested parties and cannot be changed using blockchain technology.

The quality of distribution on computers prevents it from being held or owned by one company, which would eliminate bureaucratic obstacles, reduce economic costs and process time. In order for smart contracts to be executed on a daily basis, there must be programmed transactions and a financial system that recognizes them as legitimate. Smart contracts began to be used through the digital currency Bitcoin to create transactions between people interested in receiving it.
See also: The Internet, an unprecedented transformation in the world of law

In short, smart contracts are defined as a set of immutable programmed codes distributed among thousands of nodes so that their contents cannot be changed. In this sense, it is a program that will always act in the same way, allowing information to be stored without its changes. When a programmed condition occurs in the system, the smart contract automatically executes the corresponding item. They can be very safe if they are not built with software bugs, as their security can be compromised and performance failures can occur.

Despite the great benefits and resources that technology provides to streamline processes, the legal advice and knowledge of legal professionals is a step that should not be missed, as legal expertise is required to achieve the correct codification of these contracts.