Open Law Lab
Lois Lupica, working with IAALS and the Bohemian Foundation, made a guide for legal help providers about how to effectively communicate information to the public about the legal…
With the new wave of excitement & innovation energy that has come with generative AI over the past year, I have been reflecting on what university groups are…
At this year’s Legal Design Roundtable in Brussels, many legal designers presented on what methods they are using for legal reform. One main theme was around Speculative Design,…
Last week I had a double conference weekend in DC. The first was with front-line lawyers and executive directors at legal aid groups and public defender officers. The…
This book explains how policy-making often focuses too much on the policies in the abstract and does not focus on their actual administration. There’s too much focus on the policyholder or the policymaker, and not so much on the citizen’s experience More burdens are faced by those who have fewer resources to manage and overcome them. For many Americans, the experience of government is the experience of burden.
Here is a terrific visual guide for all those making legal aid, court, or government help websites. It is from the Gov.UK team, and it lays out key…
My sketches of designer/UK Policy Lab leader Andrea Siodmok’s talk at the Digital Citizens conference in Melbourne. She presented on methods and theory of how design and futurist/speculative…
Here are my drawn notes about the most effective ways to communicate quantitative data, for others to understand – and for focus on the most meaningful points.
At a recent class on Community-Led System Design, we were lucky to be joined by Verena Kontschieder, a visiting researcher at Stanford’s Center for Design Research. She is…
This year, my work at the Legal Design Lab is shifting from the strictly generative and experimental, to more evaluation and development. That means we’re not working so…
What does it mean to take a ‘design approach’ to innovation, especially around legal and social services? I made this sketch to make it clear. The key principle…
The federal agency the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has an innovation unit, the Lab. Through the Legal Design Lab, I have been lucky to work with them…
How can courts, especially those that serve self-represented litigants, test their new ideas for improvements directly with their users? I sketched out these thoughts at the Court Technology…
For a systems + design thinking workshop that I’m coaching at Stanford d.school this week, I’ve been creating some visuals to help catch participants up with the system…
At recent talks and conferences, I have been welcomed and challenged by people who are explicitly systems-thinkers. Some resist a design approach as too “micro” and lacking computational…
One of the main points of resistance for lawyers in the design process is getting from talk to action. It’s too easy to start off with best intentions,…
I have just released the first working version of my book, Law By Design. It is meant for people in the legal system, to understand how design process,…
In our Prototyping Access to Justice class, Kursat Ozenc and I are leading student teams to get quickly from speculating about how the courts could be improved to…
In the Prototyping Access to Justice class that I’m teaching this quarter at Stanford, we’re taking a “service design” approach to the legal system. This means considering both…
This post was originally published over on Stanford Legal Design Lab’s Medium publication, Legal Design and Innovation. Enjoy! Out of all the workshops, design cycles, and product development…
I have been thinking about better ways to integrate the quick-development cycle of the Agile Design Process, and the community-driven spirit of Participatory Design. Here is my initial…
Particularly for legal design, I find it very useful to do a special kind of ‘persona document’ for the audience you are trying to engage. This persona should…
A notebook sketch I made for a class presentation on going from user research to brainstorming. The in-between step: scouting the frustrations — where your stakeholders and target…
This afternoon, I had the privilege of hearing Professor Jay Mitchell of Stanford University (and director of the Transactions Clinic at the Law School) speak about the value…
I jotted down this small shortlist during a recent conference, when I was sifting through all of the points that I have been making in different venues, for…
This is also an old page from my sketchbook — it must have been from a session at the d.school, and notes I took about how we can…
This school year, my priority is focusing on how to take the design process & adapt it to create research outcomes that are meaningful to the academic community…
I came across this blog piece by the Dutch group Am I a Designer, exploring the question of “Why change the design process?” They resist an overly formalized,…
After a conversation with a legal colleague who’s working on a new software project to simplify how courts and lawyers communicate, I was inspired to sketch out some…
Last week, during my class Into to Legal Design Class, we had some guest designers from Intuit, who work on improving the user experience of their tax customers.…
As I’ve presented design to lawyers over the past several years, one of the main points of value I’ve heard echoed back from lawyers is the mindset of…
A quick sketch of one of the key mindsets I’m trying to teach my students — and what design can offer to law. How do we think about…
by Kursat Ozenc & Margaret Hagan Everyday we make all kinds of complicated decisions, but (usually) without thinking much about them: a contract you sign, a mortgage plan…
Claire Medina and Joe Hodge of Kolba, a social venture incubator in Armenia, has an interesting post about the challenges that a small group inside of a larger…
I have been fleshing out my concept of Wise Design, with specific principles, methods, and mechanics. Here is one insight that comes up again and again when helping…
For my class this quarter, I’m focusing on “the user experience of law” — and how to get the students equipped & thoughtful to develop great UX into…
From design strategist Denis Weil, talking about connections between McDonald’s and the law.
Denis Weil, a design strategist, speaking to the ABA Legal Innovation Summit on what the Law profession should be doing.
As I’ve been writing up my ‘Design for Lawyers’ book & preparing my class presentation — I’ve been forming this venn diagram in my mind. Before, I would…
I’ve been writing up my version of the design process — particularly for complex service & systems challenges. Part of this undertaking has been figuring out which methods…