MetaverseLegal was launched in January 2022 by a group of forward-thinking members of the legal community, including several ArbitralWomen members, as a decentralised LinkedIn page dedicated to the legal implications of the Metaverse.
ArbitralWomen is pleased to support this exciting new initiative to promote thought leadership on the Metaverse and its implications for the diverse legal community, including those in international arbitration and alternative dispute resolution.
ArbitralWomen Board Member and MetaverseLegal Administrator Elizabeth Chan explains, “MetaverseLegal offers a cross-practice resource for lawyers to understand the Metaverse. This is a necessary resource at a time when we are trying to grapple with what exactly it is and what impact it will have for legal practice. Each week, MetaverseLegal’s administrators offer several posts on different aspects of the Metaverse.” Focusing on the implications for the legal community, Elizabeth Chan notes, “For example, recent LinkedIn posts have addressed what the Metaverse is, the current virtual reality technologies for accessing it, what are decentralised autonomous organisations (DAO), and the impact of Metaverse transactions for competition law. The posts are short and simple, which adds to their educative value for lawyers, whatever their discipline.”
ArbitralWomen member and MetaverseLegal Administrator Emily Hay commented, “MetaverseLegal has particular relevance for international arbitration and dispute resolution lawyers. New legal disputes will be an obvious consequence of the upcoming Web 3.0 technological revolution. Web 3.0 will add a new angle to traditional disputes and open the path towards completely different controversies. It will give rise to unprecedented challenges, draw new dimensions of dispute resolution and create new procedural playgrounds for dispute lawyers.”
MetaverseLegal is the brainchild of Ekaterina Oger Grivnova, an international arbitration lawyer at Allen & Overy, who handed over decentralised governance to all MetaverseLegal administrators. “We have numerous arbitration practitioners among MetaverseLegal’s administrators, who have contributed posts and articles on the relevance of the Metaverse to our field of practice,” commented Ekaterina. “Topics have included legal jurisdiction in the Metaverse, dispute resolution methods for Metaverse disputes, and investment treaty disputes in the Metaverse.”
The diverse team behind MetaverseLegal is engaged in a cutting-edge experiment of decentralised governance and management for this web-based initiative. MetaverseLegal is jointly created, owned and governed by its many administrators who all volunteered to be part of the project. Ekaterina notes, “As a result, the group of administrators reflects a diverse cross-section of the legal community, including lawyers with a range of experience in terms of legal practice (disputes lawyers and transactional lawyers), non-legal expertise (consultants), years of experience (from trainees to partners), nationality, gender, socio-economic background and more.”
As Emily Hay explains, “There is no hierarchy among MetaverseLegal’s administrators. All decisions are made by a voting process using an app called Discord. Rules of governance have also been developed in this decentralised way. The group is currently working on many different projects, including creating a blog. More ambitiously, the group is working on the possibility of creating a DAO and potentially even creating its own Non-Fungible Token (NFT) collection of artwork by lawyers for charity and to fund the future work of MetaverseLegal.”
“In other words, MetaverseLegal is an important innovation hub for legaltech. The process and outcome of this group’s work will offer important learnings for the international arbitration community, indeed the legal community anywhere and everywhere,” observed Elizabeth.
“One can already see the significant representation of women among the management and administrators of MetalverseLegal,” commented ArbitralWomen President Dana MacGrath. “The inclusive nature and lack of hierarchical structure of MetarverseLegal would appear to naturally appeal to and draw from a diverse cross section of the community.”
The MetaverseLegal Team as of March 2022:
MetaverseLegal was initiated by Ekaterina Oger Grivnova. MetaverseLegal is created, owned and governed by all administrators (listed alphabetically): Folasade Abiodun, Oyindamola Abodunrin, Gizem Adalı, Oluwatosin Maryjane Adunmo, Vansh Aggarwal, Docia Agyemang Boakye, Farah Alabed, Oana Jeanina Astilean, Ivan Bracho Gonzalez, Paulina Brzezinska, Layla de Carvalho, Ceren Ceyhan, Elizabeth Chan, Ritwik Chawla, Vivian Ch’ng, Rachel Chiu, Anastasia Choromidou, Reena Choudhary, Alba Crespo Vildosola, Belemir Demirbag, Celestino Dincă, Alexandru-Andrei Dumitru, Rebecca-Georgia Dunca, Elif Duranay, Elifsu Erdem, Bamisé Fatoke, Ányela Yésica Flores Yapuchura, Karim Haidar, Elif Ceren Halatçı, Emily Hay, Amine Khaliss, Michael Komuczky, Seher Kurtuluş, Alexandre Lercher, Maxime Liccioni, Omar Mahmoud, Camila Maida, Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Andres Gustavo Mazuera Zuluaga, Daniel Morales, Elias El Murr, Chidimma Njoku, Ekaterina Oger Grivnova, Abisayo Olawuyi, Shriya Pandey, Denisa Pascu, Julian Luna Pastore, Daniela Pineda Rios, Maroof Rafique, Bernardo Regueira Campos, Laura Reichen, Célestine Renault, Jason Ruiz, Viktoria Schneider, Iliass Segame, Farhan Shafi, Karina Sibilska, Adesanya Temitayo, Nafosat Toshtemirova, Shresth Vardhan, Nicolás Junco Villamizar, Lindsay Woods, Ishan Zahoor and Filippo Zuti.
The MetaverseLegal Team continues to grow and change as new members join.
As of March 2022, the arbitration practitioners among MetaverseLegal’s administrators include:
- Elizabeth Chan, Allen & Overy, Hong Kong
- Emily Hay, Hanotiau & van den Berg, Brussels, Belgium
- Ekaterina Oger Grivnova, Allen & Overy, Paris, France
- Filippo Zuti Giachetti, MDisputes, Milan, Italy
- Anastasia Choromidou, Volterra Fietta, London, UK
- Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Paikeday & Paikeday Lawyers, New Delhi, India
- Bernardo Regueira Campos, Guandalini Isfer Oliveira Franco Abogados, Curitiba, Brazil
- Michael Komuczky, Lamsky Ganzger Goeth Frankl, Vienna, Austria
- Viktoria Schneider, Hanefeld, Hamburg, Germany
- Karim Ali Haidar, KN Legal, Dubai, UAE
- Rachel Chiu, White & Case, London
- Juliette Asso, LaLive, Geneva
- Laura Reichen, Gantenberg Dispute Experts, Germany
Submitted by ArbitralWomen Board Member, Elizabeth Chan, and ArbitralWomen Member, Emily Hay, together with Ekaterina Oger Grivnova.