Legal Innovation Expert Oliver Goodenough

Joins Gravel & Shea

Burlington, Vermont (August 20, 2018): Oliver Goodenough joins Gravel & Shea as Special Counsel, bringing with him decades of experience researching, writing and teaching at the intersection of law, economics, finance, and technology. He specializes in corporate and financial matters, with a particular emphasis on the law of technological applications such as blockchain, FinTech, RegTech, and artificial intelligence. He also advises on early stage business, entertainment law, intellectual property, nonprofits and social enterprise.

Goodenough is co-founder of Skopos Labs, Inc., which applies advanced AI to questions of law and policy, and a Professor of Law at Vermont Law School. He is also affiliated faculty at Stanford’s CodeX Center, a Research Fellow of the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, and an Adjunct Professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering. He recently stepped down as co-Director of the VLS Center for Legal Innovation and as a visiting IPA Researcher at the Office of Financial Research.

“I am excited to join Gravel & Shea,” said Goodenough. “The firm has excellent lawyers and a distinguished history — as well as a practice at the cutting edge of financial and legal technology, representing clients in blockchain and related fields. I will bring my academic and practice skills in these areas to help grow the field in Vermont and around the world.”

Goodenough’s work in emerging areas of law — particularly in the field of contracts and business organizations — has impacted policy at both the state and national levels. He is a co-author of Vermont’s recent blockchain legislation and a participant in the state’s blockchain study committee. At the national level, he has collaborated with the Office of Financial Research at the Department of the Treasury on the possibility of automating financial instruments.

“I have known and worked with Oliver for many years on initiatives to improve and innovate business legislation here in Vermont,” said Gravel & Shea Shareholder Peter Erly. “A number of these projects involved first-in-the-nation legislative initiatives, including recent blockchain legislation, for which Oliver was responsible. Oliver provides a unique ability to identify legal issues affecting new developments in technology while also offering a deep background in a wide array of legal disciplines pertinent to businesses inside and outside of Vermont. We are extremely fortunate to have him join Gravel & Shea.”

Goodenough is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He was formerly an IPA Researcher and Visiting Fellow at the Office of Financial Research of the Department of the Treasury, a partner and of counsel at the New York City law firm of Kay Collyer & Boose, and a Faculty Fellow and co-Director of the Law Lab project at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Gravel & Shea is a full-service law firm in Burlington, Vermont, providing its clients legal services in a wide variety of disciplines, including commercial transactions, civil litigation, real estate, intellectual property, energy, land use and environmental regulation, estate planning, mergers and acquisitions, personal injury litigation, employment law, and family law.