A system and method for transitioning a distributed ledger network according to a legal contract that includes: establishing a contract, which comprises generating a set of programmable clauses for the contract by implementing a templating system comprised of a template model that contains the logic of each programmable clause of the set of programmable clauses; operating a distributed ledger network between participants, wherein the distributed ledger network is configured with an application model that maps to the template model; updating the contract state; updating the distributed ledger network according to the application model; in response to at least one update to the contract state, recording an update to the distributed ledger network; and in response to at least one contract-associated update in the distributed ledger network, initiating execution of at least one programmable clause of the contract and recording a subsequent update to the distributed ledger network.