Is Legal Design Bullsh*t?

Is legal design bullsh*t? Now is the time to answer this. While the design community within the legal market is still relatively small, it is time to turn the lens onto ourselves. Reality checks and critique are the accelerants of maturity. If the growing number of design enthusiasts in legal want to be taken seriously by their organizations, deepen their capabilities, and speed up adoption, they need to pivot from revelry of events to demonstration of evidence. We need to temper the celebrations and amplify the measurements.

Over the last decade, design has become quite popular across the global economy as organizations seek to find new ways to grow and strengthen their ability to innovate. It has become a management trend to help spark innovation and more effective problem-solving. Large incumbent companies like IBM, Ford, Infosys, Capital One, 3M, UnitedHealth Group, Pepsico and many others have invested heavily in design talent and programs. High growth startups such as AirBNB, Pinterest, Kickstarter, Blue Apron and Buzzfeed all have founders that come from a design background. The large consulting and strategy firms like McKinsey, IBM, EY, PWC, Deloitte, BCG, KMPG and Accenture have been acquiring design agencies at a quickening pace. And not just one or two, we are talking five or six each over the last several years. Rigorous academic studies are presenting evidence that design thinking is…