Doctoral candidate and legal researcher Amy ter Haar, who has worked with consultancies including GenesisB, on similar projects and studies smart contracts, teaches a course where anyone can set up a blockchain-based system.

“It’s really efficient when it’s fully realized,” she says. “I’m a big believer in what will be enabled through all kinds of projects like this.”

Bennett Jones partner Simon Grant, one of the lawyers who worked on the project, says the project was a “phase one” trial that used a real escrow agreement and model but not client funds. Since the project, however, Bennett Jones has worked separately with clients on putting smart contract technology into practice, using skills learned in the OpenLaw project, says Grant.

Grant says that by removing the need for an individual to act as an escrow agent, automation can be used not only in mergers and acquisitions but other types of transactions such as financing or even transactions where escrow isn’t currently used because it is too complicated.

“The collaboration . . . was among multiple law firms, but it was also between lawyers and programmers — being in the same room at the same time building this project for the ground up,” says Grant. He says that Toronto is a hub for exciting work on blockchain and other technology.