Justin Wales, J.D. '12, has been named head of legal for North America and vice president of Crypto.com. He leads the company's North American legal and regulatory strategy and operations.
"I've been fascinated with crypto since my law school days and have watched the industry grow in a really remarkable way over the last decade," Wales said. "It's a great privilege to be able to harness that passion to help Crypto.com achieve its goal of accelerating the world's transition to cryptocurrency."
Before joining the cryptocurrency exchange, he was a partner with the international law firm of K&L Gates in Los Angeles and Miami, where his practice focused on the legal and regulatory issues surrounding cryptocurrencies. Wales co-founded and chaired the blockchain and digital currency practice at Carlton Fields earlier in his career.
"I first heard about bitcoin in the UM Law Review office, but the idea of having a career in cryptocurrencies back then was absurd," said the former senior notes and comments editor at the University of Miami Law Review. "Now the cryptocurrency space is one of the fastest growing industries for new lawyers."
At Miami Law, Wales graduated summa cum laude and fifth in his class. He worked at Miami Law's Federal Appellate Clinic and was a research assistant for Professor Kunal Parker. During law school, he made the dean's list, won the Bruce J. Winick Award for Academic Excellence, earned a Daniel Pearson Scholarship, and co-authored a brief for the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving workers' rights on cruise ships and other vessels.
In 2019, he published an article for the University of Miami Law Review titled Bitcoin is Speech: Notes Toward Developing the Conceptual Contours of Its Protection Under the First Amendment, which has become the journal's most-read article. Years before, he wrote an article for UM Law Review about the cartoon Futurama, which he says was one of the journal's least read articles.
Wales graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at San Diego in June 2009 with a B.A. in history and a minor in political science.
"Miami has really become a center for the cryptocurrency industry and it's great to see how many UM graduates are working in the field," said Wales.
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