design thinking

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In a recent episode of “The Geek in Review” podcast, hosts Marlene Gebauer and Greg Lambert interviewed a team of innovation leaders from the law firm Faegre Drinker. The guests included Shawn Swearingen, Chief Innovation Officer; David Gross, Design Lab co-founder; and Ruben Gonzalez, Design Lab Director. The discussion centered around the relaunch of Faegre Drinker’s Legal Design Lab in Scottsdale, Arizona, exploring its origins, evolution, and impact on legal problem-solving.

The Legal Design Lab’s inception traces back eight or nine years when an associate at the firm, Helen Chacon, reconnected with her Stanford Law School friend Margaret Hagan, who was pioneering the concept of legal design. Intrigued by the idea of applying design thinking—a user-focused, empathetic approach to problem-solving long used in other industries—to the legal field, the firm embarked on a deep dive into the methodology. This included David (DJ) Gross auditing courses at Stanford’s D-School and team members like Kate Razavi designing courses on visual advocacy at the University of Minnesota Law School.

The relaunch and relocation of the Design Lab to Scottsdale were influenced by several factors, notably the firm’s merger that expanded its geographic footprint and the practical considerations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The move allowed the firm to acquire a significantly larger and more cost-effective space. With input from architects, designers, and Margaret Hagan herself, the new lab was designed to be a flexible, creative environment featuring movable furniture and an industrial aesthetic, fostering collaboration and innovation.

Throughout the podcast, the team shared concrete examples of how design thinking has been instrumental in solving complex legal challenges. One such example involved simplifying a profitability tool for lawyers by using a color-coded system akin to credit score reports, making it more accessible and actionable. Another highlighted the use of tennis balls to demystify crystallography during a jury trial, showcasing how visual aids and empathetic explanations can lead to successful outcomes. These instances underscore the lab’s focus on user-centric solutions and visual advocacy to enhance understanding and efficiency in legal processes.

The guests also discussed the challenges of integrating design thinking within the traditional legal framework, particularly in encouraging open-mindedness and collaborative participation among lawyers and clients. They emphasized the importance of a learning mindset, active listening, and the willingness to embrace creativity and risk-taking. To further disseminate these ideas, the team mentioned an eBook available on their website, aimed at introducing legal professionals to design thinking and visual advocacy concepts.

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TranscriptContinue Reading Designing the Future of Law: Inside Faegre Drinker’s Legal Design Lab Relaunch

You have to appreciate a book that discusses Legal Design and puts design concepts into action by working with a fellow designer on the layout and functionality of the book itself. The results of The Legal Design Book: Doing Law in the 21st Century is both a great read for the content and the physical interaction with the book. Astrid Kohlmeier and Meera Klemola, Lawyers and Legal Designers, join us from Munich, Germany, and Helsinki, Finland respectively to discuss their motivation in writing a book designed to raise awareness of legal design concepts and tools to the legal industry.
We define Legal Design and discuss the ten philosophies that legal design professionals need to understand as they implement these ideas and processes within their organizations. There is a role for legal designers within the industry, and it is one that we are constantly defining and redefining at the moment. And as we define it, we must be able to measure it and prove the value and return on investment as well. And the focus cannot simply be how lawyers and legal professionals apply Legal Design concepts, the legal user experience (LUX) must also be taken into account.
Join us for this podcast user experience into the evolving area of Legal Design.

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Twitter: @gebauerm or @glambert.
Voicemail: 713-487-7270
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com.
Music: As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca who 4th solo album just released a vinyl edition this month!
Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 132 – The Legal Design Book with Astrid Kohlmeier and Meera Klemola

For those who went to law school, do you remember that class we all took on creativity in the legal work environment? No? We don’t remember it either. That’s why Adam Tsao decided to write The Creativity Playbook for Lawyers: Strategies for the Business of Legal Practice. Adam sits down with us and discusses how he integrated creativity into his own legal education at Penn Law School, as well as his legal work at Skadden and Covington before starting his own business, At Philosophy. He stresses that creativity is a vital process in a person’s legal career, and why we each need our own playbook to help us build creative processes into our professional activities. Adam also co-hosts a non-legal podcast on creativity called Double Agent.

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Information Inspirations

Baseball season is upon us. If you are a fan, you most likely have a favorite team. Darren Siegle from Specops Software reminds us that it is okay to root for the home team, just don’t use them as your password.

While law librarians can take a joke as much as the next profession (maybe even more), a recent American Lawyer article that runs comparisons between lawyer’s spouses, kids, and pets to secretaries and law librarians didn’t land well with Greg. Legal reporters seem to lack an understanding of what amazing benefits law librarians brought to their firms during COVID. We take the time to educate them.

It seems that the law firm librarians aren’t the only ones taking a hit from the press. The latest US News Law School rankings admitted to some flaws in its initial numbers for this year in how it measured law library metrics. In a portion of the ranking that only made up .25%, the change in the statistics caused nine schools to have their rankings altered.

While officially, Womens’ History Month came to a close yesterday, it’s always a good time to honor women in the legal industry, and we bring you a couple of good podcasts that do just that.

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Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. Contact us anytime by tweeting us at @gebauerm or @glambert. Or, you can call The Geek in Review hotline at 713-487-7270 and leave us a message. You can email us at geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com. As always, the great music you hear on the podcast is from Jerry David DeCicca.
Transcript

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 111 – Adam Tsao and The Creativity Playbook for Lawyers

A few years ago, Robert Taylor and Jeff Marple of Liberty Mutual Insurance, along with Suffolk Law School’s Gabriel Teninbaum sat down at Back Bay Harry’s and hatched a genius plan over some truffle fries and sandwiches. The idea was to leverage Suffolk’s law school technology training for students along with Liberty’s desire for the law schools to help students actually learn how to address the issue of design thinking and how it applied to real-world legal issues they were facing. And while the truffle fries were still hot, the Boston Legal Design Challenge was born. On November 13th, 2020, the 4th Annual Challenge takes place, this time in a virtual setting.
Fifty participants, making up 10 teams of five students from around the country will learn more about Design Thinking, identify an issue within the legal industry which needs addressing, and at the end of the day, pitch that idea to a blue-ribbon panel made up of Cat Moon, Bob Ambrogi, and Jason Barnwell. The winning team walks away with a few thousand dollars, and all of the participants end up with significant new skills to differentiate themselves from their fellow students. The competition is not just limited to law students, or to those people within Boston. Bob, Jeff, and Gabe are looking for diverse teams made up of different schools, disciplines, and geographical regions.
Enrollment is open now, so go to LMI.co/BLDC to sign up.

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Information Inspirations
Sometimes efficiency comes from small improvements in processes. One basic efficiency for word processing is to keep your hands on the keyboard, and away from the mouse. Deborah Savadra at Legal Office Guru has a short 7 1/2 minute video showing how you can use shortcuts and macros to reduce the use of your mouse, and just be a better user of MS Word.
We’re all concerned about data privacy whether it is the type of browser, search engine, or messaging app we use. 

Continue Reading The Geek in Review Ep. 89 – The Boston Legal Design Challenge with Jeff Marple, Robert Taylor, and Gabriel Teninbaum

[Ed. Note: We’ve talked a lot recently about innovation, design thinking, creativity, and curiosity. If you are wondering where you can go to do some hands-on learning, then the American Association of Law Libraries’ Innovation Bootcamp might be for you. I asked Celeste Smith from AALL to write up a description of the bootcamp so…

Last week, I had the opportunity to sit with 15 members of a large law firm’s administrative team for about 2 hours as I facilitated a Design Thinking workshop. Design Thinking is thoughtful as well as free flowing, a bit different for law firms. Once the domain of software development, it has been appropriated by…


Technology is cool. There is no disputing that fact. Last month, while travelling for work, I had a video conversation with my kid, while I was 3500 kms away in a relatively remote mountain resort, and he was in a moving vehicle. Last week, while doing some research I came across a data visualization of…