This post is about using the proper legal design language when innovating in legal settings.
Or rather, it is about using improper language.
Language hacking is my favorite hobby and I am fluent or conversational in a few languages, including but not limited to legalese, tech newspeak, and design jargon.
And in this post, I am going to show you how you can remove all that and focus on getting things done.
What can sensitivity to language do for you?
Bringing innovation into law can be quite a challenge. There is a lot of gatekeeping. Disenchantment with previous generations of legal tech. Billable hours. Everyone freaking out about Generative AI. Innovation theatre.
The last thing we’d like to do is to introduce more intimidating complexity to the audience that is already feeling under attack.
Instead, we can focus on employing just the right amount of directions, dressed in familiar legalese terms.
This is not plain language – rather a mashup that we can call design legalese.
It all begins with one rather simple trick:
Don’t use these words: design, user, interface,…
Maybe you are thinking: wait, what? You have presented us with an intro to legal design, how to bring it to law firms, legal operations, and other disciplines, and now I am not supposed to use them?!
That is not exactly what I mean.
Please do legal design, make law more approachable, usable, and accessible.
Use all the design terms you’d like when working with other design professionals and enthusiasts.
But once you get to the boundaries of fields and there are other stakeholders in the room, reflect their needs in the way you speak.
Be empathetic with your audience and the context you are designing for. And that begins with speaking the local language of trade.
Use the concepts, but discuss them in a way that is inclusive to the teams that you are working with.
So what terms am I consciously using?
With most lawyers, I tend to use the following (a rough set):
- User ➡️ Client, matter lead, associate, colleague
- Human-Centric Design ➡️ Client-centric approach
- UX ➡️ how clients feel about working with us
- Legal design ➡️ client friendly legal services
- User research ➡️ client feedback
- Legal Ops ➡️ processes
- Platforms / portals / interfaces ➡️ I observe how lawyers in my institution are calling them and then mimic that (now we are using platform)
- Redesign ➡️ Improvement
- User research ➡️ a couple of questions about your experience
In general, I use the verb design very rarely. The only time I refer to legal design is with those colleagues, who are actively interested in the concept.
These are highly influenced by my context. If you pay attention and make this a conscious project, you will soon develop your own vocabulary that will work for your space.
What could happen if you skip this and use whatever design or legalese jargon instead?
- Chances are that people are just going to buy into the buzzword. That is not a great start for a long-lasting change
- They may be doing what you are trying to do already, just calling it differently, and your coming in with the new vocabulary may make them feel like
- you are behaving like you are superior
- not telling you what they are already doing
- Maybe they have never heard of legal design and legal tech and before
- Maybe they just don’t want to feel silly or look dumb for not knowing the new trendy lingo
- Lawyers are often wordsmiths and they may not use a term unless they are 1000% sure that they are using it right
- You might sound like an alien that does not understand the local context
- They may think you are trying to dominate them with the terminology, etc.
Final Provisions
Ultimately, when being the only designer in a room full of lawyers, it is not critical for me if my audience has heard of legal design and I am not judging them on that knowledge.
What I do care about is if they care about providing good legal services and meeting the needs of their clients in the broader landscape.
And more often than not, that is when we are speaking the same language.
Baru
