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by unhingingdog 1958 days ago
Civil law can't be fully ported to computer code, but enough of it probably can. Most contractual issues don't get anywhere near a court. They're resolved via negotiation and alternative dispute resolution (and there's normally a contractual obligation to go this route before resorting to the courts). Dispute resolution is incredibly expensive, especially when you're dealing with multiple jurisdictions. Lawyers and judges haven't managed to stop parties using mediation and arbitration services offered by people who aren't legally trained, such as economists or people with extensive domain experience.

But smart contracts would change the way contracts are written, as they're often intentionally ambiguous for a variety of reasons. There's also the problem of "oracles", but we already have a profession for translating real-world events into legal ones (notaries).