This blog is about a legal design project being run by Slaughter and May.

The project is intentionally broadly cast to begin with: we are looking at the communication of legal information and asking if our work can be more effective and engaging.

This isn’t the first time this question has been asked, and we aren’t the only people thinking about how to answer it. Our lawyers spend a great deal of time thinking about the presentation of their work and our K&I colleagues have been thinking about the form of our work products for decades.

But we think we can do more and, in this project, we want to do more to prioritise the needs of our ‘users’. We want to treat our work as artifacts that are consumed, shared and retained by our clients. We want to test our assumptions about what happens to our work once it leaves the building, and use these to formulate insights so that we can create better things.

We’ll write about the project as it unfolds. That will include how we go about co-designing with our lawyers, operational teams within the firm and clients, the ideas that we generate and the steps that we take to try and put them into practice. We’ll try to highlight the things that we learn and the things that we’d do differently next time. You’ll also hear from the expert designers and technologists that we’ll be working with to turn ideas into reality.

Who is this blog for?

This blog is for anyone who is interested in answering the ‘how might we’ question above.

Some readers will identify human-centered design principles and a design-thinking methodology in our approach. Great. We are writing about our experiences of putting these things into practice, including the things we find useful and challenging. But we’ll try not to lose focus on the goal and the tangible outcomes that we use this mindset, methodology and tools to deliver. So don’t worry if Post-it Notes and Lego aren’t for you (though there will be plenty of both), there’ll be lots of serious practical talk too.

Why are we writing it?

We think openness and collaboration leads to better outcomes.

In particular, we don’t work in a vacuum: our clients work with other firms, other professional service providers and have clients of their own. We work with other firms, technology providers and universities. We think sharing our working methods and challenges helps us because it lets other people get involved in the things that we care about. We’ll endeavor to be as transparent as possible and we welcome feedback.

We’re currently speaking to clients, designers and technologists to identify areas of focus. If you would like to learn more or get involved, please get in touch with us at LegalDesign@SlaughterandMay.com.