Washington DC Bar permits lawyers to accept crypto payments

The ethics guidance comes with important caveats. According to the DCB's statement, any fee arrangement involving crypto must be demonstrably fair to both sides, with heightened scrutiny required when clients pay in advance. Attorneys opting into crypto payments face an explicit duty to disclose payment-related risks to their clients in writing. The bar also mandated robust security practices to shield transactions from theft and hacking threats.

Notably, the DCB framed cryptocurrency as "payment in property" rather than traditional currency—a semantic distinction that contrasts with how New York's bar classified the same phenomenon three years prior. When the New York Bar Association greenlit crypto payments in July 2017, they categorized digital assets under "business transactions." Two states moved even earlier: Nebraska and North Carolina both weighed in during 2018, though with more hesitant conclusions. Nebraska emphasized Bitcoin's role in illicit activities, while North Carolina stopped short of embracing virtual currency despite finding it ethically permissible.

With more than 100,000 members, the DCB represents one of America's largest bar associations to formally authorize cryptocurrency. The organization's opinion acknowledged crypto's inherent volatility and the novel ethical questions it presents, yet concluded that existing professional conduct rules offer sufficient flexibility to safeguard clients without rejecting technological progress. As the bar framed it: cryptocurrency adoption by merchants and service providers worldwide is reshaping expectations, and the legal profession cannot indefinitely resist this evolving landscape.