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Research and Design Project

What technological interventions can make lawyers live easier and their workload more efficient?

No time to ready the whole case study and just want to cut to the chase?

Problem Statement

Law firms lose hundreds of billable hours to simple repetitive tasks, and junior lawyers to burnout, what automation and data visualisation interventions exist to lessen this.

Project Plan

Project Resources

Team

Resources

Time-frame: 2 months

Team

Myself, UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher, Front End Developer
CEO - Project Manager
Backend Developer - Build python functionality and consult on project requirements
Junior UX Designer - Assist with wireframing and style guides

Resources

User Interviews
Personas
Empathy Mapping
Figma - Mock Ups and Interactive Prototyping
Blockly - Front end of interface

Time-frame: 3 months

Month One Research and initial wireframes. Focus on Document Aspect of problem
Month One Design and Development. Focus on Document Aspect of problem
Month Two Research and Design of Dashboard

What is the project?

On commission of a partner at a large london-based lawfirm, we were tasked with exploring two potential technology interventions to address their firms pain points.

The first, automated legal document generation, turning pitchdecks into verification notes and machine learning based tools to assist in document clean up and maintenance.

The second, a legal dashboard, exploring how a cloud-based law firm can store information on deals in a single easy to use dashboard of information

Exploration and Discovery

Initial User Interviews

Over a series of video calls, I met with a partner from the law firm to better scope the pain points they were looking to address.

Repetitive Tasks - Lots of legal document creation is simply changing the same information over and over again
Loss of Billable Hours - Time spent on amendments and making required changes to files is often not billable, leaving lawyers working longer hours for less money
Poorer working conditions for junior lawyers - As the repetitive tasks are harder to bill, and less enjoyable, this work can often fall to junior lawyers, delaying their career progression by leaving them with 'scut work'

Task Walkthroughs

Due to the unfamilar sector, I asked the partner to talk me through what the average process looked like for instances such as producing verification notes for a clients pitch deck, or changing the business address of a client.

“Something as easy as adding a clients middle name, a really common change, can take up to two hours as we have to search every document which can be 200+ pages. No amount of control f or replace all can really speed this up since we have to make sure it's accurate”

Personas

To better understand the perspective of junior lawyers, as interviews were conducted with a senior lawyer, an persona and empathy map were generated to ensure their pain points were also addressed.

Persona for Lisa Goodwin, a partner in a law firm looking to reduce staff burnout

Persona for Ben Moyes, a junior lawyer experiencing burnout and disillusionment

Empath map detailing struggles of junior lawyers

UX Design

Working with Microsoft Office

Part of the solution to the various pain points involved legal document generation produced from python. While this improved speed and removed repetitive tasks, it was clear the documents would never be perfect, and I therefore had to create a front end system of 'Add-ins', micrsoft extensions.

Merging of Tables - The generated document sometimes seperates verification notes which should be one entry
Replacing Content - The system can't yet address how to replace content. The add-in needs to detect words with multiple uses, and prepare them to trigger a replace all prompt

Word Add Ins

To fit in with the exisiting ecosystem of the firm, I first focussed on what could visually fit within the miscrosoft office style of 'add-ins', side panels added to applications to provide additional services. These were not intended to be overdesigned, but instead to blend in with the existing microsoft ui.

High fidelity mock up of microsoft powerpoint with side panel explaining Librate can generate verification notes and adding a button to do so

High fidelity mock up of microsoft powerpoint with side panel showing loading animation for Librate

High fidelity mock up of microsoft powerpoint with side panel showing success message for Librate but highlighting images that could not be copied

High fidelity mock up of microsoft word with side panel explaining Librate can be used to replace matching words everywhere

High fidelity mock up of microsoft word with side panel loading Librate

Add ins Final

screenshot of librate detecting all matching words in a document, and preparing one, 'Match', to be replaced with 'Catch'

gif of table rows being selected and merged using librate

Dashboard Design - Wireframe

Wireframes were created to explore how dashboarding could solve the file eco-system issues reported. The goal is to condense everything needed for each client deal into one singular dashboard.

Grey wireframe showcasing a sidebar for switching deals and viewing upcoming tasks. Body contains a gant chart broken down by project stage, a task list containing dropdowns for each project stage, a dropdown list called 'party list' with contact details, and a list of files in a document list.

User Review

At this stage the client wanted to see the progress. They were happy with the navigation and provided further insights on what they were looking for.

These discussions fuelled the direction of the design process.

Miro board of post it notes, covering topics of lawyer stereotypes, colour choices, and a vague card sort of the life cycle of a legal deal, which tasks split into which stage.

Dashboard Design - High Fidelity

Following consultation with the stakeholder, the concept was expanded into a higher fidelity prototype, to design a system that was visually pleasing and helped convey the feelings of respect and trust essential for a law-tech product.

Purple Document management system with lots of gradients and drop shadows for a glossy effect. Features a dark blue sidebar, purple background, a gannt chart timeline a series of dropdowns for tasks, and a list of cards called party list

Blue and Cream Document management system with lots of gradients and drop shadows for a glossy effect. Features a dark blue sidebar, cream background, a gannt chart timeline a series of dropdowns for tasks, and a list of cards called party list

User Test - Eye Mapping

In order to narrow down to a final design colour pallete, style and overall appearance, I used eye mapping as part of user testing. This was selected to check how effective the dashboard was at its main goal, consolidate and highlight key data in one central location, i.e. can users find what they're looking for at a glance?

This allowed a problem with finding buttons and clickable elements to be highlighted early, and allowed the design to be refined for a final prototype.

screenshot of an interface, covered in colourful glows to indicate a heat map. This shows users looked mostly at where the buttons and largest text were on the website

Final Design

Insights

I knew from the start of this project I would not see the end of it due to contracts. As such, I had to measure success differently.

Document generation is now easier to implement and easier to manually clean - Developer perspective of the microsoft add ins
The design is bright, bold, and maintains the high society feel associated lawyers - Clients opinion of prototyping and design files
The design is intuitive, easy to navigate and I can quickly find lots of key information - summary of user testing data from client calls and eye mapping tests
There is a clear, easy to follow design system in place - Business perspective on maintaining and expanding the designs into a full service

What I learned

This project was refreshing in allowing me to abandon all assumptions and embrace not knowing things due to the very different industry. Working closely with a stakeholder and their colleagues allowed me to be more open to critiques and nitpicks, pushing and elevating my designs further to exceed their expectations.

I am proud of this project, as it required two drastically different UI's, one to blend in with a very recognisable product and another to be bright, bold and high class whilst retaining ease of use. It also allowed me to have fun and try styles I wouldn't usually opt for. I am proud of the final prototypes I developed, and I hope they will serve the clients well when they enter development.