- Introduction
- What is the Design Thinking Process?
- What are the best Design Thinking examples?
- Classic Examples of Design Thinking Application in Legal System
- Future of Design Thinking in Legal
- Final Thoughts
Introduction
Along with healthcare, education, and housing, Design Thinking is driving innovation and revolutionizing products and services in the legal domain. Legal companies can build better client relationships and develop new legal services/products and the cultured mindset of law firms by adopting this approach. Want to know more about how beneficial Design Thinking is for lawyers? Scroll down and learn about how the design thinking process can cut across legal issues in a company.
Read More: How Can Design Thinking be Used in Solving Complex Problems of the IT Industry?
What is the Design Thinking Process?
Before understanding the benefits of Design Thinking for lawyers, let’s comprehend the Design Thinking meaning. The human-centred Design Thinking approach has indeed taken the world by storm. The primary purpose of Design Thinking is to encourage organizations to focus on their target audience, the people for whom the product is created, leading to better products and services and improved internal processes.
Read More: What is Design Thinking and Why is it important in Business?
What are the best Design Thinking examples?
Whether you are in a leadership role of a communication company, elementary school teacher, or a clerk in a government organization, innovation is everyone’s business these days. And that is why it has become more necessary than ever to learn more about the Design Thinking process. Oral B, Apple, Nestle, Airbnb, UberEats, and Bank of America are some top organizations that used the design process to improve their services.
Read More: How Design Thinking has Revolutionised Five Prominent Industries
Classic Design Thinking Examples in Legal System
1. Helps with Delivering Legal Service
Some of the best law firms in the world are using design thinking for innovation in the legal sector to restructure their services and enhance their firm’s value proposition to clients.
A Chicago-based firm, Baker McKenzie, launched an initiative – Whitespace Legal Collab’.19 that brought academics, designers, executives, information technology experts, and lawyers together under one roof to encourage multidisciplinary collaboration. The sole purpose of this initiative was to thrive and help lawyers navigate complex legal issues. The program also focused on making the most of technologies to address multifaceted challenges, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and quantum computing.
When it comes to improving client services using the Design Thinking process, another brilliant example that often gets a lot of attention is the service model of Seyfarth Shaw, a Chicago-based law firm. After the initial research, they [Seyfarth Shaw] recognized that the costs of legal services play a primary and determining factor for clients to opt for a law firm. They came up with the idea of creating a Client Playbook, which mapped out the individual needs of clients, interests, and touchpoints. As a new practice, employees started to use that book to reframe the relationship as a journey which not only proved to be cost-effective but also promoted functional value for the clients.
2. Aims to Improve the internal processes
Apart from client engagement and improving legal services, Design Thinking also improves internal processes. Hogan Lovells, a law firm based out in London, used Design Thinking at their firm to improve the performance review process and facilitate more efficient talent development and employee engagement.
Every year, firm associates received regular feedback, lacking specificity, substance, and guidance on improvement areas. They initially started by identifying associate’s expectations from their performance review and feedback on the current performance feedback process. The next step of the Design Thinking process was to establish what Hogan Lovells, as a firm, sought to accomplish from its performance reviews and what they were expecting from employees.
After listening to both sides, they came up with the concept of note cards that include specific questions for each associate to facilitate a 10-minute conversation between associates and their supervisors. With the help of targeted questions, the feedback session became more engaging and formalized.
3. Creates a Better Working Performance
Even small-scale legal firms and sole-proprietors can use Design thinking to maintain profit margins, optimize performance, and retain new clients to sustain their businesses. But one thing to note here is that implementation of Design Thinking for innovation differs from firm to firm in terms of their design, depending on the particular requirements of an organization. For example, sole-proprietors can use Design Thinking to make their office setting less intimidating for clients. Moreover, Design Thinking can enhance the client experience and build better lawyer-client relationships and client goodwill, which is of utmost importance for a smaller business.
Read More: Enhance Your Customers’ Retail Experience with Design Thinking
Future of Design Thinking in Legal
We have already told you about how Design Thinking provided some unique opportunities for law firms. But now the question is: what does the future hold?
In the present scenario, clients demand legal knowledge and legal services from their firm, due to which, Design Thinking is continuing to gain momentum within the legal profession. From enhancing access to justice to improving organizational processes and promoting legal services, Design Thinking for innovation, if done right, can be integral for working legal professions. One of the fundamental frameworks of Design Thinking for lawyers is to enable them and law firms to place clients’ needs as the central focus of providing services without losing sight of business considerations, as the examples above have demonstrated. Primarily, the Design Thinking process cultivates a culture of innovation that helps in making better clients and building stakeholders in the legal ecosystem. With the help of Design Thinking, lawyers can re-envision their service delivery design. They usually start the process with user data that provides a framework to test prototypes and launch solutions with real users.
Read more: How is Singapore reshaping using Design Thinking?
Final Thoughts
Embracing Design Thinking for innovation in daily legal practice can bring promising results. Considering the benefits of Design Thinking, if you also want to practice this skill, apply for the Design Thinking Course. This 12-week fast-paced course is the perfect introduction to the Design Thinking essentials, gives you all the foundational knowledge, and teaches you about tools you need to kick-start your Design Thinking journey.
