Thank You, French Lick: Talking Crypto at the 2026 ISBA Solo & Small Firm Conference
Earlier this month I got to present at the 2026 Indiana State Bar Association Solo & Small Firm Conference, held June 4-6 at the French Lick Resort. This year's theme was "Off to the Races: Advancing Your Practice with Purpose," which fit a topic plenty of Indiana attorneys are only now realizing they need to deal with: cryptocurrency in divorce and civil disputes.
I'm writing this for two reasons. One is to say thank you to the people who made the conference happen, and to every attorney who spent an hour of a nice weekend in southern Indiana learning about blockchain. The other is to recap what we covered, for the folks who were there and want a refresher, and for anyone who missed it but keeps bumping into crypto questions in their cases.
What the session was about
The talk was a CLE built around one practical question: how do you find out whether cryptocurrency belongs in a case, and what do you do once you have?
We organized the hour around four verbs, in the order the work actually happens: identify, trace, value, and recover.
Identify. Most of the time, hidden crypto isn't some elaborate laundering scheme. People either forget they own it or quietly hope nobody asks. The most effective tool an attorney has is also the one most often skipped: ask directly. Put it in the intake questionnaire and in discovery, and ask for wallet addresses, exchange accounts, hardware devices, and keys. Not just "do you own any crypto?"
Trace. Once you know an exchange or wallet is in play, the blockchain becomes a remarkably honest witness. We walked through how an exchange balance can read zero while the asset sits in plain view on-chain, and why a transfer to a private wallet right before filing tells a story of its own.
Value. Crypto's volatility turns the valuation date into a strategic decision rather than a clerical one. A $5,000 position from a few years ago might be worth six figures today, or it might have cratered, and the date you choose can move a settlement by a meaningful amount. We covered volatility, valuation-date strategy, and the capital-gains tail that follows the asset.
Recover. Last, we got into the realities of actually reaching the asset. That means separating exchange-held balances, which answer to the same anti-money-laundering and subpoena rules as a bank, from self-custodied holdings, and planning around the "I lost my password" defense before it shows up.
Why this matters for solo and small-firm practitioners
The point that seemed to land hardest was about professional duty. ABA Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8 asks lawyers to keep up with the benefits and risks of relevant technology. Cryptocurrency has quietly gone from novelty to standard asset class. A large share of millennial and younger clients have owned or traded it, and the average divorcing client falls right in that range.
In practice, that's straightforward. The attorney who says "I didn't know to look" is increasingly exposed. The attorney who found the asset, valued it, and recovered it is the one the client remembers. Crypto doesn't just sit on the balance sheet. It can affect income and the support calculations that follow from it, credibility, dissipation arguments, and your leverage in a negotiation. You don't have to become a blockchain expert to handle it well. You do need to know when to look, what to ask for, and when to bring in help.
Thank you
Thank you to the Indiana State Bar Association and the Solo & Small Firm Conference planning team for putting together a strong program and making room on the schedule for a newer topic. The venue and the hospitality at French Lick were excellent.
Thank you to my fellow presenters for a sharp lineup, and to everyone who stopped by to talk shop in the hallways and over coffee. Some of the best conversations of the weekend happened outside the session room.
Most of all, thank you to the attorneys who came. Crypto is an easy subject to keep putting off. Learning it before it lands in a contested case is the kind of preparation that pays off later, and your questions during the session showed real engagement with the material. A few of them made me stop and think.
For attendees and anyone who missed it
If you sat in on the session, you walked out with handouts meant to be useful on day one: suggested discovery and interrogatory language for digital assets, a plain-English cryptocurrency glossary, a visual guide to hardware wallets and recovery, and a short list of key takeaways. For a straightforward case, those should let you cover your bases without picking up the phone.
When a case isn't straightforward, that's where we come in. Maybe the numbers don't add up, maybe an old wallet or seed phrase turns up, or maybe you just want a second set of eyes. Heartland Blockchain Advisors offers a free preliminary screen for attorneys who suspect crypto may be hiding in a matter, with flat-fee assessments and right-sized investigations from there. We work directly with counsel to keep the strategy coherent and privilege intact.
If we talked at French Lick and you meant to follow up, or a case came to mind while you were reading this, I'd love to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Robert Coons Founder, Heartland Blockchain Advisors heartlandba.com
