Are you ready for this? Probably not, but please bear with me, because the legal implications will be enormous.

Imagine, if you will, a world resembling our physical one, but completely virtual, immersive, colorful, all-encompassing one with land, rivers, houses, farms, people, animals, full cities, stores, businesses, concerts, and everything else contained in our physical world. Sauntering down a bustling city street, minus the smells, is as easy as walking on a moon that orbits an earthlike place. Platforms with full replication of our physical world are being built through a wearable device to create this Metaverse. You may ask, why? That seems ridiculous! Fourteen years ago, before the iPhone launched, we didn’t imagine the myriad of things we could accomplish by simply touching a piece of glass faced tech today. It would have been a leap of faith to see where we sit now. This is that next leap.

In the Metaverse, people will interact, transact, have ownership of assets, have relationships, build things and companies, create IP, have copyright issues, advertising, crimes may happen, insurance will be developed, and a massive host of other IRL (In Real Life) things that all will require legal to be involved. Not to mention the scaling of DeFi (Decentralized Finance) which has begun. Clearly this is a burgeoning market. While I have been engaged in this space for several years, the publication of a white paper by ReedSmith on the Metaverse underlined its importance for the legal industry. This was shared with me earlier in the year prior to publication. It is a worthy read if you wish to continue down the rabbit hole.

Understanding the Metaverse
The underlining technology shift
Legal implications
Opportunity and Risk

360 Video: Design Thinking Workshop - Thomson Reuters Innovation Lab at Communitech