About the Course
Introduction
This CLE webinar will explore how decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have evolved from innovative blockchain experiments into structures with significant economic scale. The panel will discuss how counsel must navigate legal, governance, and risk implications when establishing or guiding a DAO.
Description
What started as a niche model in decentralized finance (DeFi) has grown into thousands of token‑governed collectives managing billions in treasuries, bringing scrutiny from both regulators and litigators. The panel will cover how DAOs are in use today, what entity wrap options exist, and where DAOs are open to legal liability and regulatory exposure, particularly for clients that build, join, or transact with DAOs.
The experts will review the latest legislative and case law developments, examine best practices for structuring and contracting with DAOs, and identify emerging risk vectors.
Listen as our panel discusses when a DAO makes sense, how to wrap a DAO in an entity for liability protection, and how to manage enforcement, compliance, and governance issues now and in the future.
Presented By
Mr. Bench helps entrepreneurs, companies, and venture capital and private equity funds with international and domestic business transactions. His clientele stretches across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. National and global trade organizations regularly invite Mr. Bench to speak regarding international business transactions, particularly foreign direct investment to and from the U.S. and China. He is an emerging legal expert in the fast-moving and complex web3 ecosystem, including business and regulatory issues surrounding decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), smart contracts, decentralized finance (defi), cryptocurrencies, coins, and tokens, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs). He has worked on wide-ranging blockchain projects involving various international DAO communities, NFT artists and studios, layer-2 blockchain developers, metaverse companies, and celebrity brand influencers.
Mr. McAvoy takes a practical and knowledgeable approach to the law of digital assets, private funds, securities, and other investments from a transactional, regulatory, fundraising, and formation perspective. As co-chair of the firm’s FinTech and Blockchain practice, he frequently works at the intersection of all of these areas, particularly with respect to the formation and launch of private investment funds, including those with a digital asset or FinTech strategy; offerings by and investments into organizations in the crypto space; structuring decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs); navigating the launch of non-fungible token projects; asset fractionalization; coordinating complex international projects; and helping digital asset organizations comply with the rapidly-evolving regulatory environment. Mr. McAvoy is a trusted advisor to numerous investment advisers, digital asset projects, DAOs, fund sponsors, broker-dealers, and investors, and has represented a range of organizations, from startups to Fortune 500 companies to unincorporated entities through all portions of the corporate life cycle.
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
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Date + Time
- event
Thursday, February 5, 2026
- schedule
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
I. DAO fundamentals
A. Definition and governance
B. Current use cases
II. Legal status and entity wraps
A. Naked DAOs as associations/partnerships
B. State models (WY, UT, NH, TN)
C. International perspectives
III. Regulation and compliance
A. Securities, commodities, DeFi regulation
B. AML/KYC, sanctions, tax and BOI issues
C. Counterparty risk
IV. Litigation and enforcement
A. Service of process, jurisdiction, standing
B. Token‑holder liability
C. Litigation risk mitigation
V. Adoption, use cases, and practicality
A. When DAOs make sense
B. Structuring wrappers and hybrid wrappers
C. Contracting and governance design
VI. Outlook and trends
VII. Practitioner takeaways
The panel will address these and other key issues:
- Establishing DAOs and how they operate today
- When to recommend DAOs
- Limitations and advantages of using a DAO as a business structure
- Updates on state statutes and case law affecting DAOs
- Managing liability, regulatory exposure, and governance risk
Related Courses
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Updates on Governance, Liability, Entity Wraps
Thursday, February 5, 2026
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
