Will Attorneys Use Metaverse In 2022?

Close your eyes and imagine an attorney. You’re likely to summon the image of an overworked person wearing rumpled dress clothes, confronting a stack of documents piled high on a cluttered, coffee-stained desk. That’s because the legal field has never been famous for its embrace of technology.

But this is quickly becoming an antiquated view of a venerable profession. Why? The Metaverse forces people to rethink every aspect of the working and the social worlds, and attorneys are not immune to this cultural shift. Legal professionals with an eye toward the future are using the new frontier of the Metaverse to their advantage by putting their services to lucrative use in this burgeoning digital marketplace. People are flocking to the Metaverse in droves. Where people go, money-making opportunities follow. The first legal professionals to plant their flag in the Metaverse are reaping the financial rewards of their foresight.

It’s helpful to identify what the Metaverse is to understand the best ways to navigate it.

The Internet, as it’s currently constructed, is a 2D experience. The websites we visit and use daily exist in a “flat” way on the screens of our phones and laptops. By contrast, the Metaverse is a 3D experience. It allows users to see its world in 3 dimensions using virtual reality headsets. By donning a headset, a user journeys to a new world, albeit one that exists virtually. But unlike the constraints of the physical world, the possibility for expansion in the Metaverse is endless. 

Imagine traveling to a bustling city, a quaint town, and a picturesque mountain range in mere seconds. These are opportunities that the Metaverse presents. It’s a brave new world created for exploration and adventure. 

Americans are long reputed to have a pioneering spirit. Innovative thinking is synonymous with the nation’s ideal. Today’s most innovative thinkers are devoting their mental energy to unlocking the potential of the Metaverse. Here’s how that cutting-edge thinking looks with a focus on the law. 

The Metaverse is a world unto itself, with offices, single-family homes, farms, and parking lots. All these property types can be bought and sold in the Metaverse using NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) as proof of purchase. In essence, NFTs are the way people certify authenticity and ownership in the Metaverse. NFTs use similar technology as cryptocurrency, but they are not a form of actual currency. 

If all this sounds confusing, don’t worry. It takes some study to understand. The people best equipped to commit to that study of the new way that ownership is certified in the Metaverse are attorneys. That same stack of documents will be piled high on their cluttered, coffee-stained desk. But now, the focus of those documents is legally assigning ownership to property and goods on the digital frontier. While slow adopters continue to chase ambulances, forward-thinking attorneys will be instrumental in writing the laws to govern the Metaverse. 

This shift could represent a new gold rush for the legal profession. Every transaction in the Metaverse needs a contract to make it legally binding. An attorney focused on the decades to come will want to be the person writing those new contracts and creating the new paradigms that outline how to conduct future business. 

Everything in the physical world that requires legal expertise will need the same legal know-how in the Metaverse. Say, for example, you bought a plot of land in the Metaverse where you wanted to build a home. You need an attorney to write up the offer to ensure your bases are covered. But you also need that attorney to line up the proper permits so that your construction project is aboveboard. Even zoning laws exist in the Metaverse.

Human interaction. Ownership. Creation of new intellectual property. Wading through all these minefields is sometimes tricky. It often demands a keen eye for detail attorneys possess. There’s an urgent need for this keen eye in the Metaverse.

There are so many unresolved questions surrounding life in the Metaverse. But questions are great for any attorney because questions lead to spirited arguments, and argument is stock-in-trade for any attorney. For example, one hotly-contested issue to debate is how to regulate privacy in this uncharted realm. Current privacy laws cater to a physical world with data stored in cardboard boxes. The Metaverse will provide attorneys eager to protect privacy rights with new questions with which to grapple. 

There’s no point hanging your shingle in this exciting new market if nobody knows how to find you. Same as in the physical world, a good marketing strategy is vital to growing any business. At the heart of any sound legal marketing approach in the Metaverse is the creation of a welcoming virtual office. Just like attorneys take great pains to ensure their real-world office spaces look modern and professional, the same concerns exist in the Metaverse. But you’ll save a lot of money on cleaning bills! 

Once you’ve set up an inviting virtual office to conduct your affairs, the next order of business is creating an avatar to interact with potential clients. In simple terms, an avatar is a graphic version of you that exists in the Metaverse. This is you, as a computer-generated image. You’ll want your avatar to represent you in the most flattering way possible. Your avatar should be well-groomed and well-dressed to give off a competent appearance. First impressions matter just as much in the Metaverse as they do anywhere else. 

The biggest tech companies in the world are investing eye-popping amounts of money in the Metaverse. Facebook recently spent $10 billion on researching it. Historically, companies like Facebook are ahead of the innovation curve. The Metaverse has potential without limits. If savvy thought leaders in the tech space realize this truth, people in other industries would be wise to follow suit. 

This is especially true for attorneys. The laws of the Metaverse are being written daily. Early adopters of this intriguing new environment in the legal profession will reap financial rewards for their ability to see the future of law before anybody else. So, get on the right side of this historic movement. Get with the Metaverse.