What went wrong with your last innovation project…
Problems in your innovation, transformation, or digitisation project?
Meet the Legal Design pyramid!
I first came across this concept via the incredible Margaret Hagen from Stanford School (see lawbydesign.co/legal-design/ for the original version). We have reimagined her version and developed our own with examples.
Why is this pretty pyramid so powerful and important?
Because this pyramid explains many of the struggles you have had in your own innovation journey.
Whether your project involves the rollout of new technology to your small law firm, simplifying a sales contract in your SME organisation, a large-scale automation project for your procurement team, or an effective triage and matter management system for a large legal team.... whatever the problem, the legal design pyramid offers clues for success and spoilers for failure.
Let's take a walkthrough
Starting at the very tip of the tip of the pyramid, we have Information Design. A very important piece of the puzzle and if you were lucky enough to be in London at Legal Geek 2022, you would have heard Nicole Bradick from Theory and Principle give a great overview on information Design (and if you have been following CLL for some time, you will have heard us talk on this issue many times and seen it in our Contract Design Buffet)
INFO DESIGN
This is about organising information to take existing content and make it easier to understand, redesigning it to make more sense and be easier to read.
Now there is info design and info design.... people in the legal industry will still often dismiss this as 'pretty pictures', but it is so much more than this.
You only need to watch the rise of Canva as a visual design platform proclaiming 'the future is visual' or look to the way visualised data stories and interactive data can capture our imagination (McKinsey, ABC news in Australia, and the New York Times have amazing examples of this explaining everything from election results, technology trends and even the VICE / VOX explaining the relationship between TikTok virality and Spotify downloads (i.e. $$$).
A well designed website earns more money, so why are lawyers still ignoring the role design can play in legal advice, access to justice, speed of doing business and more...?
PRODUCT DESIGN
Here we are creating actual tools for getting legal shit done.
Traditional legal tools might have been a receptionist to take calls and greet clients and refer inquiries to the appropriate area. New digital tools could be as simple as a legal intake form or more complex like a chat bot that helps assemble a contract document.
Here we are creating actual tools for getting legal shit done. Traditional legal tools might have been a receptionist to take calls and greet clients and refer inquiries to the appropriate area. New digital tools could be as simple as a legal intake form or more complex like a chat bot that helps assemble a contract document.
A small step down to the next layer of one of my faves....
SERVICE DESIGN
This layer of the tasty legal design pyramid is all about creating client centered legal services and the best experience for clients.
If you haven't tried your hand at this before, you will be amazed at the new perspective it can bring and the enthusiasm from your team when you start thinking about what might make life more enjoyable for your clients.
Elephant and Rider is a wonderful HCD organisation that has a great Client Experience (CX) deck you can use to think about the way you want your clients to feel either overall as part of the process or individually for a specific process or product.
Source: Photo by Sister Scout for Checklist Legal, card deck by Elephant & Rider
For Checklist Legal, our key CX attributes that we aim for our clients to experience are:
Confident
Delighted
Energised
Understood
Rebellious
ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN
Is where we look at the way we help lawyers perform better, for example with clause banks or approval processes or methods that help make client onboarding easy for lawyers.
Note, clearly there is an interaction between product, service, and Org design... and you may be starting to understand why your last contract simplification process was so difficult.
As we jump down to the ground floor…
SYSTEM DESIGN
This is where things can trip you up. At a firm or organisation level, system design might mean things like your IT security policy, the hierarchy and the way you are remunerated (billable hours vs value based pricing)...
And at a broader level, it can mean the legal system as a 'thing'... the machine of justice, the web of regulations that apply and the laws that are enforced (and the way they are enforced, such as the priorities of a regulatory body).
If you haven't already twigged why your last innovation / transformation / digitisation project failed or wasn't as impactful as you hoped, let me lay it out for you.
It is difficult to redesign a document to remove ALL the complexity that your organisation builds in at the foundation, and system level.
If you are only working on one layer... such as making things easier for lawyers.... your impact is unlikely to be significant. Most contract automation tools are solely focused on making it "easier" for lawyers to assemble documents.
Does this make the life of a lawyer easier?
Perhaps for that one task.... but it doesn't address the tip of the iceberg, to explain legal content more clearly... it also won't address the experience of your clients (you know, those people who pay your bills and generate revenue?)... And it also won't be able to change the outdated biases of your organisation or legal system ... such as
'We only hire from xxx schools',
'We only sign on paper',
'We always get everything approved by legal',
'You must give your home address to be a director of a company'
How to 'solve for' the problematic legal design pyramid?
The answer is not so much to solve every layer all at once (that is a recipe for a cake that will never be cooked).
The main thing is to be aware of the layers. Build a sense check process into your innovation concepts.
If you are enthused about designing a new legal product, remember to be aware of the Systemic and Organisational challenges you will need to address - both inside and outside your organisation.
Charging ahead blindly and then pushing through challenges or building haphazard workarounds is one approach.
Building a strategic plan can ultimately help you have a bigger success with your innovation / transformation / digitisation strategy if you get buy in and consideration from each layer in the pyramid.
Want some help slicing up your innovation / transformation / digitisation pyramid?
Reach out to book a call with our award-winning innovator and Legal Director, Verity
