1934 Footnote Predicted Governance Tokens: Rethinking Crypto Law

In 1934, legal scholar Adolf Berle wrote a footnote speculating that someone might one day hold a passive property right in active property. That concept is now known as a governance token. Teresa Goody Guillén is a founding partner of Bellamentis and founder of the legal AI platform Sophie Lex. She says that day is now, and it is reshaping how she advises clients building in digital markets. Her career includes work at a plaintiff's law firm and a federal clerkship for Judge Urbina of the US District Court for the District of Columbia. She also worked in the SEC's Office of General Counsel and alongside former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt. She later launched her own law firm focused on the convergence of traditional and digital financial markets. Her name has come up as a potential contender for SEC Chair. In her practice, she helps clients navigate exemptive relief, subpoenas, and the "security or commodity" question. She thinks that question misses the point. Through Sophie Lex, she is developing proprietary AI trained on her own legal reasoning. The goal is to help lawyers work faster without losing judgment. She argues that AI should scale lawyers rather than replace them. She also shares her take on SEC Chair Paul Atkins' modernization push. She believes exemptive relief, more than new legislation, could unlock effective crypto regulation today.