Authors: Daolexa
Reviewer: LawPanda
Squad: Legal guild
Background.
Following our earlier post, Legal guild organized a Legal entity AMA where LawPanda, Tertius, Teresa and Thriller addressed some legal questions that arose in regards to incorporation, jurisdictions, and other relevant considerations the community had.
Based on the discussion we had, the Legal guild is proposing the following.
Next Steps:
The Legal Guild is working on organizing a branding AMA to address the community’s IP and branding questions. We are seeking external support, which is why it’s taking longer.
Currently, only two individuals are involved in discussions with HQ about branding, and neither is a lawyer. The Legal Guild believes it is necessary to have at least one legal expert involved in these conversations.
For this reason, the Legal Guild is proposing that @lawpanda join these discussions. The Guild has voted for LawPanda as our representative, and we are now asking the DAO to grant him the mandate.
Please note that this does not mean LawPanda is the legal representative of the DAO. LawPanda is a long-term, dedicated contributor to the DAO and is offering his support during these times. To appoint a legal representative for the DAO, a different process and relationship with an expert will be required.
- I agree.
- I disagree.
Daolexa joined the last two governance calls where we discussed a legal entity among other questions, and as it was pointed out, incorporation is one of the two (along with branding) important legal questions that the DAO needs to focus on in the coming weeks and months; and the Legal guild would like to lead these initiatives, and is asking the DAO for the mandate to do so.
What does this mean?
- The Legal Guild will continue to explore options for incorporation and will provide the necessary support to reach a community consensus on this matter.
- Should the community decide to proceed with incorporation, the Legal Guild will undertake the necessary actions, including but not limited to drafting an operating agreement or any required legal documents, organizing elections for DAO legal representatives, and managing necessary administrative tasks. Please note that the specific tasks will depend on the chosen jurisdiction; therefore, we cannot definitively outline all required actions at this time.
- Identify and source the necessary legal experts for incorporation and branding.
- Miscellaneous: Address all legal and some operational tasks that are currently unknown.
- Maintain regular communication and provide updates to the DAO.
- I agree.
- I disagree.
At some point, the DAO will need to vote on the jurisdiction of the incorporation, and understanding which jurisdiction to choose is a very complex question. We would like to provide the DAO with necessary education on this topic.
A while back, LawPanda initiated a project to do a research on different jurisdictions, and now we are looking into ways to repurpose it and in collaboration with the Academy to create learning resources for the community.
Funding:
At the moment, the legal expenses are unknown and will depend largely on the jurisdiction we choose (if any).
We will need to engage an IP lawyer (I am, Daolexa, already talking to some), and we will need to provide funding for the work done by this external contributor.
The Guild will ask for funding based on the work that was done, meaning we will ask for funding retroactively (except for the cases such as incorporation, IP lawyer, etc). The retroactive funding will be for contributors based on work and milestones that we will share with the community in the coming weeks.
The Guild will probably need to engage with the Marketing dept to organize some campaigns to keep the community informed and engaged, and we will probably need some funding for that.
Development of the educational materials will require some funding as well.
At some point, the DAO will probably have to vote for some sort of a legal fund to pay for the initial and maintenance expenses.
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As always, we welcome your questions, suggestions and feedback.
We will keep on providing you with regular updates.
We hope to roll out a roadmap with milestones in the coming weeks (acknowledging that there are several dependencies affecting the exact timeline).