Why legal professionals need to start thinking like designers

Sonja Cilliers and Maryke Groenewald from Professional Mind Resilience Institute (PMRI), South Africa

Traditional legal problem-solving methods, while effective in many respects, can often be rigid and slow to respond to modern challenges. Design thinking, a human-centred, iterative approach to problem-solving, offers legal professionals a fresh perspective to enhance client service, improve efficiency, and drive meaningful innovation.

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is a structured yet flexible methodology that prioritises user experience, creativity and iterative problem-solving. Initially developed in fields such as architecture and product design, it has since been embraced by industries ranging from healthcare to finance.

At its core, design thinking consists of five key stages:

1. Empathise: Gaining a deep understanding of the users' needs, experiences, and challenges.
   
2. Define: Clearly articulating the problem based on insights gathered.
   
3. Ideate: Generating a broad range of potential solutions.
   
4. Prototype: Developing preliminary models or frameworks to test ideas.
   
5. Test: Refining and iterating solutions based on real-world feedback.
   

For legal professionals, applying design thinking means shifting from a process driven approach to a more user focused methodology that prioritises clarity, accessibility and practicality.

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Why legal professionals should adopt design thinking

The legal sector has traditionally been structured around precedent, rules and a cautious approach to risk. However, in an increasingly complex world, legal professionals must balance precision with adaptability.

Design thinking provides a framework to achieve this balance by:

• Enhancing client-centric solutions: Legal services can often be daunting for clients unfamiliar with legal terminology and procedures. A design thinking approach ensures that legal professionals consider the client’s perspective at every stage of service delivery.

• Driving efficiency in legal processes: By testing and iterating solutions, legal teams can refine workflows, reduce inefficiencies, and improve service delivery.

• Encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration: Legal professionals frequently work with diverse stakeholders, including clients, regulators, and corporate executives. Design thinking fosters collaboration, leading to more innovative and holistic solutions.

Applying design thinking to legal challenges

1. Empathise: Understanding the client experience

Empathy is fundamental to design thinking. In a legal context, this means stepping into the client's shoes to fully grasp their pain points, fears and frustrations. Practical approaches include:

• Conducting structured client interviews to uncover common concerns.
  
• Creating client personas to better understand different user needs.
  
• Mapping out the legal journey to identify potential barriers and friction points.

For instance, a legal team working on consumer protection issues may discover that many clients struggle with complex contracts. Understanding this frustration could lead to the development of simplified agreements with plain language explanations.

2. Define: Framing the problem accurately

A precise problem definition is essential to developing effective solutions. Legal professionals often deal with broad, multifaceted challenges, and refining these into clear, actionable problem statements is crucial.

For example, a large corporate legal team facing bottlenecks in contract approvals might initially define the problem as "delays in contract processing." A more targeted approach would be: "How might we streamline the approval process for standardised contracts to reduce turnaround time without increasing risk?"

By refining the problem, the team can explore specific solutions, such as automating routine approvals.

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3. Ideate: Generating creative solutions

The ideation phase encourages legal professionals to think beyond traditional approaches. Brainstorming sessions, mind mapping, and scenario planning can all contribute to a broad spectrum of potential solutions. The key here is to foster an open, non-judgmental environment where ideas can be freely explored.

For example, a law firm seeking to improve client communication may explore various ideas, such as:

• Developing interactive online FAQs for common legal questions.
  
• Implementing AI-powered chatbots for initial client consultations.
  
• Offering legal workshops or webinars to educate clients on key issues.

At this stage, the goal is not immediate feasibility but rather generating diverse possibilities.

4. Prototype: Creating tangible solutions

Prototyping involves building small-scale models or trial versions of solutions to test their effectiveness before full implementation. In legal practice, this could take various forms, such as:

• Piloting an automated contract review system for select clients.
  
• Testing a redesigned client intake form that simplifies data collection.
  
• Creating a mobile-friendly portal for real-time case updates.

By developing prototypes, legal professionals can gather insights on usability and potential improvements before rolling out solutions on a larger scale.

5. Test: Refining solutions through feedback

Testing is an essential step that ensures solutions are truly effective. Legal teams should actively seek feedback from clients, colleagues, and stakeholders to refine their approach. Key strategies include:

• Conducting pilot programmes to assess new initiatives.
  
• Gathering client feedback through surveys and interviews.
  
• Using performance metrics to measure efficiency and satisfaction improvements.

For instance, a firm introducing a new digital client onboarding system may find through testing that clients prefer a hybrid approach, combining digital forms with personalised guidance from a legal professional. This insight can lead to an optimised solution that balances efficiency with human interaction.

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Case studies: Design thinking in action in South Africa

Several large South African law firms and corporate legal departments have successfully incorporated design thinking into their operations.

• Streamlining client onboarding: One leading law firm identified inefficiencies in its client intake process. By mapping the client journey and pinpointing areas of frustration, they introduced a streamlined, digital-first approach that reduced processing time and improved transparency for clients.

• Automating routine contracts: Another firm applied design thinking to enhance its contract review process. By identifying common client frustrations, they implemented an AI-driven contract review tool for low-risk agreements, reducing turnaround time and improving cost efficiency.

• Enhancing compliance training: A corporate legal department tackled compliance challenges by redesigning employee training programmes. Using design thinking, they developed interactive modules tailored to different teams, resulting in greater engagement and reduced regulatory breaches.

These case studies demonstrate how design thinking can be a valuable tool for legal professionals looking to modernise service delivery, improve internal processes, and better meet client needs.

Conclusion

Design thinking presents an opportunity for legal professionals to reimagine problem-solving in a way that prioritises user experience, efficiency, and innovation. By embracing empathy, redefining problems, generating creative solutions, prototyping, and testing, legal professionals can develop approaches that are more responsive to modern challenges.

As the legal industry evolves, adopting a designer’s mindset will be essential in creating legal services that are not only effective but also accessible and client focused.