Law and innovation – legal design

In the theoretical perspective, supported by academic research, it comes close to the creation of artifacts, reflective practice, problem solving activity, form of reasoning and elaboration of meanings.

Legal design integrates the digital transformation of law. In short, it involves structuring a mind map designed to improve legal services through innovation. It focuses on the demands and needs of related parties in order to deal with increasingly complex legal problems, which require assertive solutions that involve, in many cases, several jurisdictions and branches of law.

In specialized literature, the term is defined as an umbrella term uniting innovative legal thinking and design thinking through an interdisciplinary approach that includes information, documents, services, processes and legal systems. Therefore, it refers to the application of human-centered design aimed at the prevention or solution of legal problems, organizing information in order to increase its clarity and understanding, prioritizing the point of view of the “users” of the law (citizens , companies, lawyers, judges) 1.

Design thinking has no single meaning. In the theoretical perspective, supported by academic research, it comes close to the creation of artifacts, reflective practice, problem solving activity, form of reasoning and elaboration of meanings. In the management area, the sense of expression is associated with a set of practices, cognitive approaches and mindsets aimed at developing creative solutions, uniting design and innovation, focusing on dealing with complex realities2.

Professor Margaret Hagan, from the Legal Design Lab, at Stanford Law School, organized her conceptual proposal around the production of innovation aimed at clients, making legal services more usable, useful and engaging. The application of design to the legal field aims, in this sense, to generate ideas on how legal services can be improved, increasing speed and efficiency through processes, mindsets and mechanisms that structure these attempts at innovation3.

Legal design is, therefore, the adoption of an innovative and creative posture by the legal professional oriented to problem solving focused on the specific needs of clients, communicating such information in a practical, clear and attractive way, while developing new forms of collaboration in the perspective of structuring offices and legal departments culture of innovation4.

It is therefore necessary to understand in detail the problem to be solved, the needs and perspectives of the solution’s recipients; identify the gaps in which innovation and creativity can be applied; organize a feasible procedure divided into stages, based on the synthesis of the information obtained during the investigation of the challenge; test; analyze feedbacks; and apply the result of that process in practice.

Improving the legal services delivered to corporations and individuals is undoubtedly the greatest contribution of legal design. After all, the new reality requires more assertive and creative solutions from professionals, who give priority to the specific demands of related parties. This applies from technological innovations, based on Artificial Intelligence and automation, to support for analytical reasoning and technical skills, with direct benefits directed to communication and understanding.

By: Wilson Sales Belchior