Law Firm Leadership: What is Legal Design Thinking?

So, what is Design Thinking? Design Thinking is a creative process for innovation. In the same way lawyers use a process for court preparation or engaging in business development, Design Thinking is a process with five distinct steps to develop a better way to deliver legal services or solve a challenging problem.The five steps are:

1. Empathize: Through interviews, direct observation and research, one gains an intimate understanding of the user's situation, need and context. Often, we discover hidden needs and opportunities by simple observation and repetitive interviews. These needs and opportunities may lead to a better way to serve a client.
2. Define: A thoughtfully articulated definition of the challenge or “point of view” directs the design effort. The “problem definition” is a clear statement of what the user wants to achieve through the process. This may be increased efficiency, lower cost, faster turnaround time, better communication or an improved result. The POV is also the ruler by which we measure success, that is, did the innovation solve the problem we set out to fix?
3. Ideate: This is the “brainstorm” step, where many varied ideas are generated, tested with the user, refined through an iterative process and several ideas are selected for the next step. Often, we consider non-traditional ideas in order to get the creative and unique solutions we desire. There are a number of tools and skills used in this phase to help teams hone in on an innovative concept, and not just a “doable” idea.
4. Prototype: A physical representation of the top ideas are “mocked-up” for the user to try them out. We prototype to understand better and refine our understanding of the user's needs as well as to test ideas for viability. Prototyping is also an iterative process that helps narrow down the ideas to a single concept to test. In legal, the prototype may start as a process map that is implemented on a trial basis to learn if the new process works as envisioned.
5. Test: Once a single concept is selected for development, we test it with real-life users to find ways to improve the idea before rolling out the program. Again, this is an iterative process that involves constant observation, interviews and refinement until an optimum performance is realized.

The outcome of design thinking is a user-centered solution that may have not been apparent beforehand. Both the designer and the user gain experience and commitment to the solution because both have invested in its development.

What Are Some Ways to Use Legal Design Thinking?

Design Thinking has been used in many ways in the legal profession. For example, the Legal Design Lab (legaltechdesign.com) of Stanford University has been a leader in developing new models of access to the justice system. Law departments, such as Microsoft, have used LDT to develop new ways of automating legal contract processes. Law firms have used LDT to both improve internal processes, such as new matter intake and attorney orientation, as well as client-facing processes, such as reducing steps in a legal process and integrating alternative service providers into service delivery processes.

Of most interest to law firms and their clients, however, is how to re-design the delivery of legal services and improve the relationships between law firms and legal departments. Legal Design Thinking may be applied to develop new ways to combine human-centered design and technology to meet the ever-changing demands of the legal profession. For example, consider how LDT may be applied to:

• How a legal department can find efficiencies by re-designing a legal process to eliminate steps and reduce cost.
• How a law firm can develop a new way to track matter costs and communicate spend-to-budget progress to a client.
• How a law firm can re-design internal processes to be more effective, such as attorney on-boarding, conflict-checking or associate training.
• How, together, a client and outside counsel can collaborate to find ways to manage a legal project using alternative service providers and new technology to reduce cost and improve turnaround time.

Legal Design Thinking results in not only more creative and effective solutions, but also a closer relationship and collaboration between law firms and their clients, the legal departments.

Key Mindsets for Using Design Thinking in a Legal Context

Design Thinking brings several mindsets that can be particularly helpful to law firms adapting to a VUCA world.

User Centric: Design Thinking focuses on the experience of the user, which can be either a client or someone in the law firm or legal department. Either way, firms can only benefit from gaining a more intimate understanding of what their clients are experiencing, their goals for efficiency and cost reduction and their operational challenges. Lawyers and staff need to have a “beginner's mindset” when observing and interviewing clients to learn how they can make their life easier and solve everyday problems that make legal work inefficient.

Iterative process: Design Thinking is a process of trial and error. Much like Agile Development in the software world, Design Thinking happens at a rapid pace, trying out new ideas with clients before they are fully baked. This will be a challenge for some lawyers and business professionals. However, the iterative process will result in better solutions and a closer relationship with the client.

Work in Diverse Teams: Interdisciplinary teams with people from different backgrounds, experience and perspectives will result in more creative and innovative solutions. The benefits of assembling senior team members from finance, marketing, development and IT together with lawyers, clients and outside experts to solve “wicked” problems are obvious.

How do you learn Legal Design Thinking? The best way to learn LDT is to do it. Like most leadership skills and management techniques, LDT takes hands-on practice, not something that is easily picked up from a book or webinar. The best Design Thinking workshops focus on:

• Why we need to innovate;
• The client's perspective on innovation;
• What is Design Thinking and how it works in legal;
• Design Thinking Mindsets, Skills, Tools and Processes; and
• Hands-on hackathon or Design Thinking Experiential Challenge.

The hackathon gives every participant an opportunity to act as both designer and user. Participants go through the entire Design Thinking process, from user interviews to developing a final physical prototype (think pipe cleaners and construction paper) in a fast-paced exercise.

This summer, I facilitated a legal lean sigma workshop, hosted by a law firm and attended by senior partners and their top clients. Over the course of two days, these multi-disciplinary teams analyzed and re-designed critical processes that addressed real-life legal and operational challenges. Clients loved the opportunity to not only learn a new management technique, but to also collaborate with their attorneys to create new and better ways of working together. This was, in my mind, an ultimate act of client service.

[Editor's Note: ALM has a lean law program, with information on budgeting, strategy, work plans, communication, contingency planning and follow-up. For more information, visit www.law.com/lean-adviser/.] *****

Mark Beese is President of Leadership for Lawyers and Founder of Design Thinking Legal. He focuses on helping lawyers become stronger leaders and business developers. He provides Legal Design Thinking Workshops for legal departments and law firms. More information at DesignThinkingLegal.com and LeadershipForLawyers.com.