Re-Design Legal Profession: A Call Out to Cincy Design Community
Many people in the legal markets right now are enamored with “disruption” and “innovation.” Two words that when you look at their definitions; speak more of “doing,” not “talking.” Yet that is what most of us do, just talk. Talk about the problems of the legal profession, talk about a new normal, talk about “what if's,” and far too many talk as if they have the answers – or that a certain someone does not. Just take a glance at twitter for fifteen minutes and it is so easy to see that most people in this space just yap. Talking is good mind you but we have far too much of it recently, and it is time to balance it with action.
I put my money where my mouth is on this. I have designed and launched my own service startup. I have applied my learning in business design to help my clients achieve business break-throughs and new models. In fact, I travel to London in four weeks just to give a 10 minute demonstration on this very topic. Why? Because I want to demonstrate that it takes action to change something, not whitepapers or blogs.
The thing I am doing right now – by writing this – is making a “call out” to any Cincinnati based design thinkers that may want to join the effort of re-designing the legal profession. See, Cincinnati is a global hot spot for design. Yes it even beats Silicon Valley! The amount of skill and experience in my new hometown is immense and I am hoping someone is willing to see the immense opportunity to apply design to the law and create some incredible things (startups, new services, actionable ideas, etc.)
It occurred to me that while there are a growing number of startups in the legal space, too few have approached their mission with a design mind. Most look to add technology to a current process in the hope of extracting some value. While that can work, I am confident that once we apply a design approach to the legal profession, we will only uncover deeper problems and challenges. The advantage of this approach is that by articulating the various challenges in this space, solutions can be fashioned based on solving the problem NOT by making the problem, in effect, more efficient by introducing a tech tool.
I have been applying service and business design in the legal market on a company-by-company basis for some time. In recent years I have been taking the design approach into the startup realm and yes, even in the legal practice arena. It works there too.
If any Cincinnati based lawyers are reading this and are interested – please reach out. I have always said that lawyers are in the best position to re-design themselves and their services. This can be done without calling for the end of lawyers or other nonsense. It should be done in a manner that makes lawyers work and services more valuable - to the users (clients) and to the lawyers themselves. Don’t think that can happen? I will show you proof.
So please if you are a designer (service and/or product) and want to work in some challenging terrain, please reach out.