# LexDAO: law is a public good **URL:** \ **Category:** Public Good Projects Discussion\ **Tags:** submission-accepted\ **Created:** [March 17, 2024, 5:46am UTC](https://discuss.octant.app/t/lexdao-law-is-a-public-good/271 "2024-03-17T05:46:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bestape](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/discuss.octant.app/bestape/32/284_2.png) [@bestape](https://discuss.octant.app/u/bestape)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2024, 5:46am UTC](https://discuss.octant.app/t/lexdao-law-is-a-public-good/271/1 "2024-03-17T05:46:03Z")
List defined [here](https://docs.octant.app/submission-process.html#project-information-submission): 1. the “contributions” and “impact” paragraphs below: ## contributions LexDAO is a club of legal engineering professionals united to bring the traditional legal settlement layer to code and coded agreements to the masses. We believe that everyone deserves access to justice in a quick and efficient manner. If legal services were easier to use, verify and enforce, we could live in a fairer world. LexDAO organizes sophisticated conversations and educational materials to help orient people around how to build in the new and evolving space. LexDAO focuses on Code is Law applications where practical legal theory is embedded into smart contracts, applications and networks. The efforts we undertake are all in the spirit of public goods and services. Many of our projects spin out into standalone tools or services; some examples include KaliDAO and Smart Invoice. ## impact We’ve done many projects over the years, and recently got a grant big enough to start publishing comprehensive annual reports! Examples of high-impact are Real World Asset “RWA” offshoot projects like [Tater](https://twitter.com/TaterDao) and [Cougar](https://twitter.com/CougarDao), using our offshoot project Kali for the DAO OS. These Kali RWA project are making important strides in web3 real estate. Like many other on-chain DAO deployers, Kali is the culmination of LexDAO Projects related to onchain governance, arbitration and corporate structures. The smart contract code is greatly simplified which makes it easier to read and secure assets on-chain. Another example is [Smart Invoice](https://app.smartinvoice.xyz/), a tool by a 3rd party built on LexDAO’s public-good lawtech [LexLocker](https://github.com/lexdao/lexlockerv2) that is designed to provide web3 workers with cryptocurrency invoicing, escrow and arbitration capabilities. As with most LexDAO affiliated solutions, Smart Invoice is built in an open source framework so that other developers can build on top of its code. It is designed for clients and contractors to make the facilitation of crypto-payments easier to use and safer for both parties involved. Community members don’t strictly need to pay to join, since LexDAO has both paid subscriptions and also contribution. More about that at [Membership | LexDAO Legal Engineering Guild](https://lexdao.org/membership/) . 1. “Law is a public good. If law isn’t a public good, all public goods are in threat.” A more visceral ‘NSFW’ video by one of our core members [here](https://twitter.com/KylerW56/status/1762839012765532178). 1. SVG logo [here](https://picsvg.com/svg/TWRjR301.svg). 2. [lexdao.org](http://lexdao.org) , [x.com/lex\_dao](http://x.com/lex_dao) , [lexdao.substack.com](http://lexdao.substack.com) 3. [Signer.is - sign messages with your crypto wallet](https://signer.is/sign) wallet: 0x966a4b9d5D2E01799170a0865C2D1cBBc1904163 # Epoch 3 application form sumission with minor changes ## what are your main project funding sources? Grants funding, user donations, other. ## how much have you raised for each of your funding sources and from who? ~79,500 OP from RetroPGF3, ~$70,000 from Gitcoin rounds, [~$710 from Giveth](https://giveth.io/project/lexdao) ## are you seeking Project-specific funding, funding for general operations ## has your project launced or planning to launch a token? No ## share your project rodemap: Finalizing now, because of the RetroPGF3 grant we’ve been able to switch from keeping the lights on to getting back to initiatives ## what milestones have you achieved? Cryptolawer directory, newsletter, weekly study group, ETHDenver events, multiple services and products offshoots such as [https://twitter.com/cougardao](https://twitter.com/cougardao) , [https://twitter.com/taterdao](https://twitter.com/taterdao) , [https://doc.lex.clinic](https://doc.lex.clinic) (running Creative Commons working group on NFTs), [https://lexblock.xyz](https://lexblock.xyz) , [https://twitter.com/kali\_\_gg](https://twitter.com/kali__gg) , [https://twitter.com/ixiantech](https://twitter.com/ixiantech) , [https://www.daocoalition.org](https://www.daocoalition.org) , [https://x.com/web3coalition](https://x.com/web3coalition) (got [DDEX.net](http://DDEX.net) to create an NFT working group with a web3 leader as co-chair, Open Source Orchestra collab bull-revival plans for this year’s Music Biz conference), [https://folk.gg](https://folk.gg) (experiments in web3 permissionless-copyright), helped Hats Protocol integrate [Snapshot.org](http://Snapshot.org) and Gitcoin Passport ## tell us more about milestones you’d like to achieve During the bear market, we were focued on keeping the lights on. Now that we have funds again we plan to have a dedicated General Counsel who can produce public good templates for the web3 community, spin up the Journal of Legal Engineering with [https://descier.science](https://descier.science) , attend and host events at multiple conferences as we did with ETHDenver 2024, turn grants-out back on including retroactive funding for groups like [https://coala.global](https://coala.global) , improve our legal dicrectory, turn weekly legal hacks back on (we already turned weekly study group back on), switch to [https://www.hatsprotocol.xyz](https://www.hatsprotocol.xyz) governance, complete the web3-GAAP tools proto-described at [https://ape.mirror.xyz](https://ape.mirror.xyz) as iNFTs and legal seals and likely other initiatives by our members as we open our roadmap up to DAO-wide planning this month. ## funding goal and budget $300,000 to fund the remainder of 2024 as we plan to spend the ~$300,000 RetroPGF3 grant within 6 months. Legal and automating law is expensive so we could definitely make a major impact if we had a million-dollar a year budget. However, as a DAO with a powerful self-evident idea as our mission – **law is a public good** – we can survive with no budget. ## tell us more about your team Some of the top legal engineers and cyptolawyers are members of LexDAO. Here is a list of some of our members: [https://twitter.com/search?q=lexdao&src=typed\_query&f=user](https://twitter.com/search?q=lexdao&src=typed_query&f=user) [https://twitter.com/search?q=lex\_dao&src=typed\_query&f=user](https://twitter.com/search?q=lex_dao&src=typed_query&f=user) Our event at the Gitcoin House this ETHDenver had x3 the capacity sign up to attend: [https://twitter.com/lex\_DAO/status/1762904086633177247](https://twitter.com/lex_DAO/status/1762904086633177247) ## social credibility (development progress, awards, notable GitHub commits, referrals) [Address: 0x581b5e51...a30e43f3e | OP Mainnet Etherscan](https://optimistic.etherscan.io/address/0x581b5e51ffbb742f92e818fb177cad8a30e43f3e) , [GitHub - lexDAO/Ricardian](https://github.com/lexdao/ricardian) , [GitHub - lexDAO/LexLockerV2: Simple, multi-purpose escrow system for business on evm-compatible chains](https://github.com/lexdao/lexlockerv2) , [GitHub - lexDAO/Kali: Optimized DAC Protocol](https://github.com/lexdao/kali) , [GitHub - kalidao/wrappr](https://github.com/kalidao/wrappr) , [GitHub - kalidao/keep: Tokenized multisig wallet.](https://github.com/kalidao/keep) , [LexNews+ Weekly | ⚔️ LexNews+ ⚖️ | LexDAO | Substack](https://lexdao.substack.com/s/lexnews-weekly) , [https://lexdao.substack.com/](https://lexdao.substack.com/) , [https://ie.nani.ooo/](https://ie.nani.ooo/) , [GitHub - lexDAO/hackmd: Current (not deprecated 2021) HackMD sync repo](https://github.com/lexDAO/hackmd) ## why’s your project important? Law affects so many parts of our lives. Lowering the cost of law has an exponential impact on human collaboration. Legal automation offers amazing opportunities to lower costs, but not all law can be automated. As such, LexDAO works in deterministic law (very automatable) and discretionary law (high-level reasons). Most importantly, we do this work as open source for the public good. Too few organizations offer pro-bono web3 legal services, and there ais more demand than LexDAO can currently offer; an Octant grant will help us scale to meet demand. ## what’s your project’s Twitter handle? @lex\_dao ## GitHub link > **[LexDAO](https://github.com/lexdao)** > > Web3 Legal Engineering Guild. LexDAO has 124 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub. ## project Discord link [http://](https://discord.gg/dAySQQPPsD) ## Discord contact: @bestape ## Telegram contact: @bestape ## wallet address: 0x966a4b9d5D2E01799170a0865C2D1cBBc1904163 ## anything else you’d like us to know? We’d love to chat with you if you’d like to learn more about LexDAO. We’re a DAO with a complex legacy, so it migth make sense to interview our core and OG members. Feel free to reach out to me on Telegram if you’re interested. We have a grants call every Friday in our server at 8AM PST open to the public. ## what can the Octant team help you with? Help us revive our legal hacks call by coding with us! Would you like legal help? Prease reach out to us! ## how do you define impact for your project? what metrics are you tracking? We hope to spend our funds on better capturing metrics. Too much of our impact goes unquantified. Important metrics we are caputing include: number of active members, growth of our newsletter, attendees at our IRL vents, how many offshoots have spun out of our DAO, how many people looking for legal services awe connect with cryptolawyers. ## share your project impact metrics and results We would love to work with you and other professionals to help us better capture metrics, plan a portion of our OP RetroPGF3 to create an anual impact report. We’ve already reached out to [https://twitter.com/carl\_cervone](https://twitter.com/carl_cervone) and General Magic for assistance and might begin this process as early as April 2024 circa during Stanford’s CodeX futurelaw conference. Some thoughts about better metrics reporting: how many offshoots (e.g. Kali, TaterDAO, Clinic)? what impact do those offshoots have? how many members? how many people we help find lawyers? how many questions we answer in our Discord? how many study groups we have and how many people attend? how many IRL life events we have and how many attendees? how many people subscribe to our newsletter? for our offshoots that publish smart contracts how often those contracts are used and in what way? when we start grants-out again how do we capture metrics there? ---
**Author:** ![drllau](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/discuss.octant.app/drllau/32/301_2.png) [@drllau](https://discuss.octant.app/u/drllau)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2024, 3:41am UTC](https://discuss.octant.app/t/lexdao-law-is-a-public-good/271/2 "2024-03-26T03:41:04Z")
What is a **legal engineer**? (for which LexDAO is the guild to hang out). We _bridge the gap between wet-ink and firm-code contracts_. What we believe in (as per [constitution](https://github.com/lexDAO/LexDAO-Constitution/blob/master/LexDAO-Constitution%20v02.md)) is > **Section 1.2 - Purposes.** LexDAO is organized to form a club of legal engineering professionals, united to innovate and bring the traditional legal settlement layer to code, and coded agreements to the masses. We believe that **everyone deserves access to justice provided in a quick and efficient manner**. If legal services were easier to use, verify, and enforce, we could live in a fairer world. Distributed ledger technology offers solutions to many problems in the legal space. Our mission is to research, develop and evangelize first-class legal methods and blockchain protocols that secure rules and promises with code rather than trust. We do this by training LexDAO-certified legal engineers and building LexDAO-certified blockchain applications. We strive to balance new deterministic tools with the equitable considerations of law to better serve citizens on a cooperative and nonprofit basis for the primary and mutual benefit of its members and common good. As practitioners, we walk the walk, not just talk the talk. In the 80s there was a TV series called the paperchase of which I’d excerpt one episode. https://www.youtube.com/embed/exZaIbfJF6o?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&list=PLuKCuijf9J-VpqBK-lAk79S2euyEWDiIP&start=2645 Contracts are fundamental to human activity as it establishes both norms (expected behaviour) but also obligations for future behaviour. As Galvin Wood points out ( **less trust, more truth** ) we have evolved from _trust as a social stricture_ (reputation, netiquette, honor/face) towards _institutional trust_ (freedom of press, independence of judiciary, transparency of governance). However, in recent decade, technology is encroaching on these beliefs - _freedom of speech_ has been enclosed by SNS platforms into _fiefdoms of reach_ … the hidden algorithms (supposed trade secrets) actually recommend click-baits which foster echo-chambers rather than rational/balanced discourse - _pervasive surveillance_ - LittleSis will tattletale on your ad-browsing and front-run your browser search to highest bidder, privacy is NOT just the _interval between when people stopped believing in omniscent God and govts noticed the market gap_. - what’s the point of transparent windscreen if you can’t get your hands on the steering wheel? _Participatory governance_ should NOT be which lobbyist writes the (tax) laws but to empower the average netizen to act on civic concerns. LexDAO aims to communicate the changes that technology (in particular web3) will impact on society (DAOrganisation and human coopetition), encourage developers to think about the legal consequences of their work, and enable communities to debate/define their own socioeconomic flows (token engineering including social capital). As a subscription-based club, we currently have a number of ideas but lack the resources to implement. Activities that we have accomplished in the past: - hackathon to crowdsource a submission to the Wyoming DAO LLC legislation - spinning out automated entity formation so you can start a (micro) company for the cost of gas (hundreds rather than thousands of $$$) - worked with standards bodies such as Ethereum Cat Herders to improve decision making. Initiatives which we would like your support for including - legal clinic (free for non-profits) to triage #find-a-lawyer questions and provide fast mediation outcomes or referral to our members practice areas (quality checked) - develop thought-leadership on AI, law-in2-code (above), and legal interface into administrative procedures - replace onerous compliance with self/co-regulated thin rules which can be adapted to local circumstances whilst still conforming to good public policy (eg lemon problem = asymmetric information and insufficient market transparency) drllau | LexDAO ---
**Author:** ![bestape](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/discuss.octant.app/bestape/32/284_2.png) [@bestape](https://discuss.octant.app/u/bestape)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2024, 6:29pm UTC](https://discuss.octant.app/t/lexdao-law-is-a-public-good/271/3 "2024-06-03T18:29:36Z")
Update at [Grants/external/Octant\_Epoch\_4.md at main · lexDAO/Grants · GitHub](https://github.com/lexDAO/Grants/blob/main/external/Octant_Epoch_4.md) ---
**Author:** ![bestape](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/discuss.octant.app/bestape/32/284_2.png) [@bestape](https://discuss.octant.app/u/bestape)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 2:07pm UTC](https://discuss.octant.app/t/lexdao-law-is-a-public-good/271/4 "2024-06-07T14:07:57Z")
New drop by Commons Economy explaining our GitHub. > ---
**Author:** ![bestape](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/discuss.octant.app/bestape/32/284_2.png) [@bestape](https://discuss.octant.app/u/bestape)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 11:54pm UTC](https://discuss.octant.app/t/lexdao-law-is-a-public-good/271/5 "2024-06-13T23:54:03Z")
Be sure to also look at [Discord](https://discord.com/channels/1066118789479010354/1247030929877368884) as that’s the main place I’m adding info about LexDAO. ---
**Author:** ![bestape](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/discuss.octant.app/bestape/32/284_2.png) [@bestape](https://discuss.octant.app/u/bestape)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2024, 12:30am UTC](https://discuss.octant.app/t/lexdao-law-is-a-public-good/271/6 "2024-06-15T00:30:32Z")
Oops, this is where you should go [Discord](https://discord.com/channels/1066118789479010354/1219040778278666251)