Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets
Josias "Joe" N. Dewey is a financial services and real estate attorney and is considered a thought leader on blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT). Mr. Dewey is the co-author of the book, "The Blockchain: A Guide for Legal and Business Professionals," published by Thomson Reuters. Mr. Dewey formerly served as the leader of Holland & Knight's Miami Real Estate practice group.
Mr. Dewey regularly represents a diverse group of banks and other financial institutions, from large international banks to local community banks. Mr. Dewey also represents life insurance companies and investment funds involved in finance transactions. His finance practice encompasses a broad range of asset classes and transaction structures, including real estate financing, healthcare real estate finance and asset-based lending, such as receivable, inventory, equipment and working capital facilities. He has substantial experience representing both lead lenders and participant lenders in participations, syndicated transactions and other co-lending arrangements.
Mr. Dewey is also an experienced software developer who has developed workflow applications to speed up the lifecycle of financing and other transactions by reducing the inefficiencies caused by repetitive, process level tasks. These pain points and areas of friction are often caused by transaction steps involving manual transcription of deal terms, tracking the status of deliveries and the lack of effective communication channels, all of which increase transaction costs and increase the risk of human error. Mr. Dewey's group has extensive experience leveraging statistical learning models, including natural language processing, text classifiers and similar tools – all in an effort to automate many of these manual processes. This has allowed the group to collaborate with clients and to provide true value-added service.
Mr. Dewey has written and spoken extensively on blockchain, DLT and the convergence of traditional human-prose contracts and computer code-based "smart contracts." This includes experience with several distributed ledger protocols, including Hyperledger Fabric (IBM Blockchain), Ethereum (both public and permissioned versions) and R3's Corda. Mr. Dewey spends a considerable amount of his practice in this space assisting clients in refining use cases and developing proof-of-concept (PoC) applications. He combines his technical understanding with his experience addressing the legal and regulatory issues that surround the use of blockchain in a broad range of applications. Mr. Dewey also participates in blockchain hackathons, most recently submitting a functional pharmaceutical supply chain application for reducing counterfeit drugs and prescription pill abuse.
As applied to blockchain and DLT, Mr. Dewey has experience in several substantive areas of the law outside his traditional area of practice. In handling these engagements, he works collaboratively with other lawyers in the firm who practice in the areas of emerging companies, corporate and securities, investment products and regulation, capital markets, insurance, money transmitter, anti-money laundering and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) compliance, intellectual property, private wealth, tax matters and several others.
Mr. Dewey is also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Miami School of Law, teaching a real estate transactions course where he places a heavy emphasis on how technology is changing the way transactions are structured and counterparty risks are allocated, as well as what skills students will need to succeed in law during the next 20 years and into the future.
Honors & Awards
Top 10 Legal Innovators for North America, Financial Times, 2018
The Legal 500 USA, Corporate/Mergers & Acquisitions, 2014
Chambers USA – America's Leading Business Lawyers guide, Real Estate, 2009; Banking & Finance: Transactional, 2013-2018
Florida Legal Elite, Florida Trend magazine, 2007, 2008
Memberships
Digital Currency & Ledger Defense Coalition
The Florida Bar, Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section
The Florida Bar, Business Law Section
Read more: https://www.hklaw.com/josias-dewey/
