Avainsana: law firms

Episode 28: Do’s and Don’ts of Legal Innovation with Marco Imperiale

2 marraskuun, 2021 legaldesignpodcast Yleinen 0 Comments
Marco Imperiale.

“I am not expecting law firms to be innovative, I’m not expecting law firms to be software houses. If I want a software, I go to a software house, if I want legal advice, I go to a law firm. I think for me the trick is to be in a law firm that is 20 to 30 percent more innovative than their peers.”

”

We are living very exceptional times to work as a lawyer. The innovation game is on in the legal industry, and law firms are not excluded from it. New legal roles are created and the dominant players are yet to emerge. Working as today’s lawyer differs greatly from the era of our grandparents, although it might be overwhelming to figure out what still has to change and what can remain. Should law firms of the day be like software houses and start selling legal design services?

In this episode we are joined by Marco Imperiale to discuss legal innovation, and its do’s and don’ts. Marco is an innovation and design thinking veteran in the legal industry and has years of experience in hands-on innovation work. Marco shares his thoughts and ideas about how to start the innovation work in law firms and what to focus on. For lawyers who are not that keen on the change, the good news is that there will always be a need for traditional legal expertise too. But to make the most of it for the clients, it’s good to start working in multidisciplinary teams and try to be at least a bit more innovative than the competitors. We also discuss why selling legal design services is so difficult, but why buying them is a good for any company that seeks for positive transformation. At the end of the episode Marco, who is also a trained mindfulness trainer, shares his tips for calming the mind in the midst of the busiest season.

Marco Imperiale is a lawyer, a mediator, and the head of innovation at LCA Studio Legale.He has extensive experience in legal design, legal tech, and in the interplay of copyright law and the entertainment industry. Whenever he finds time, he also works as a teaching fellow for Harvard Law School (CopyrightX course) and as a mindfulness trainer. Marco is an avid passionate of innovation in its broader meaning, and he is the author – together with Barbara de Muro – of the first Italian book on legal design, published by Giuffré Francis Lefebvre.

Episode 23: Doing Law in the 21st Century with Astrid Kohlmeier and Meera Klemola

29 syyskuun, 2021 legaldesignpodcast Yleinen 0 Comments
Meera Klemola (left) and Astrid Kohlmeier.

Access to justice, digitalization, billable hours, burning the midnight oil, comprehensibility, working culture… Those are the topics that often come up when discussing what needs to change in the legal industry. How to do law in the 21st Century with the tools and mindsets from the 18th Century? What would Astrid and Meera do?

In this episode we are joined by the legal design legends and leading global experts Astrid Kohlmeier and Meera Klemola. Astrid and Meera are also published authors, their book ”The Legal Design Book – Doing Law in the 21st Century” was published earlier this fall.

Astrid and Meera tell us about the book project (and give valuable tips for the legal publishing industry!). They also share their insights about the core elements of doing law in our era and why we are going through transformation as an industry exactly now. They both have tremendous experience on Legal Design projects and working with different clients and they help us imagine what can be legal designed with sharing some examples on those projects.

We are certain that after listening to this episode, everyone will see the benefits of Legal Design so clearly that it will definitely become the mainstream way of doing law in the 21st Century!

Astrid Kohlmeier is a lawyer and internationally
renowned legal design pioneer. She has been
combining law and design for more than 15 years, with senior roles in the insurance, litigation, finance, and service design industries. The legal design expert advises legal inhouse departments and law firms such as Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Airbus, SAP, NetApp and many more. Winner of several design awards as well as honoured as “woman of legal tech”, she develops user-centric legal solutions with a focus on innovation and digital transformation. Astrid is a member and lecturer of the Executive Faculty at the Bucerius Center on the Legal Profession, co-founder of the non-profit
organization “Liquid Legal Institute e.V.”, speaker at relevant conferences worldwide and works with a global network of legal designers. She is actively engaged at the intersection of education and method development to establish the profession of “ legal designers” worldwide.

Meera Klemola is globally recognised as one of the pioneering voices in Human Centred Design for legal professionals and legal business. Dubbed by The Legal Forecast as one of the first ‘Legal Designers’ and the host of the world’s first Legal Design Summit, Meera continues to lead and actively contribute to the discourse on the evolving role of design in law as well as corporate learning and development. Meera is a trusted advisor to some of the largest brands, corporations, law firms and in-house legal teams. She also co-teaches with professors at law schools, is a frequently requested keynote speaker at global innovation conferences
and company retreats and is a contributing author to various platforms on the topics of design in law, modern work and leadership. She holds multidisciplinary qualifications in law, design management and business.

6. Episode: Legal Services from Client Perspective with Juha Saarinen

4 huhtikuun, 2021 legaldesignpodcast Yleinen 0 Comments
Juha Saarinen

Lawyers and law firms often consider themselves as client-centric. But what the clients of private legal services think of ”client-centrism”? In this episode Henna and Nina talk to Juha Saarinen, Head of People & Operations Legal in Nordea Bank Finland, to find out what end-users really want from their legal services.

Law firms only exist because of their clients. But do law firms really put their clients first?  Are they constantly looking for new ways of working to provide better and more efficient customer experiences, or are they actually happy with the same old, same old? Many law firms advertise themselves as client-centric, but the reality may not be more than just a buzzword on the brochure. Impressing the client by bringing an army of lawyers to a meeting may actually just be the most expensive cup of coffee he or she ever had. 

One reason why private legal services are slow to change is the billable hours business model logic. To put it roughly: the more hours a lawyer works, the more money he or she can charge the customer. But shouldn’t quality defeat quantity, also in legal work? Do people really need lawyers interpreting other lawyers by writing walls of text, or would the tailored user experience and legal tech solutions be the new money making machine for the legal industry? Would that also help lawyers to live more balanced, happier lives?

Legal expertise is not enough to guarantee competitive edge for any law firm. Legal end-users want something more from their legal services than just legal knowledge: openness, sense of ownership and control. This is where Legal Design can help law firms to win their clients’ hearts. Instead of assuming that lawyers and legal services are client-centric by nature, maybe we should start asking our clients what they really need. If you haven’t asked that in a while, you can start by listening to this episode.

Juha Saarinen works at Nordea as a Head of People & Operations Legal and he is in charge of the legal operations in the legal unit of the Nordea Bank Finland. Juha is an experienced legal counsel with a history of working especially in the retail and financial industry. Juha’s goal is to take the legal unit to a new era by experiencing the wonders of legal tech and legal design and also enforcing some new thinking within the legal and financial industry.

Juha is now pushing onwards with legal operations and targeting the day-to-day efficiency and effectiveness of the legal team, facilitating change, controlling costs and managing external service providers.

1. Episode: Introduction to Legal Design with Lina Krawietz

27 helmikuun, 2021 legaldesignpodcast Yleinen 0 Comments
Lina Krawietz

In this first episode of the podcast series Henna and Nina introduce you to legal design with Lina Krawietz, the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of This is Legal Design.

In this episode we cover the basics of Legal Design. What is Legal Design and why do we need it? Does design thinking change how lawyers work? How to implement design thinking into client work? We also discuss about Legal Design impact and if it is possible to determine the business value of Legal Design. What kind of added value can the improved user experience have in legal services?

Lina Krawietz is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of This is Legal Design, a Berlin based innovation consultancy, specialized in legal innovation. As a Legal Designer, with a background in law, design & legal technology, she helps law firms, legal departments and legal tech companies to identify their innovation potential and develop meaningful, human-centered solutions. Lina is also the Co-Editor in Chief of the legal innovation journal ”REthinking Law”. In November 2020 she was awarded the European Women of Legal Tech Award in the category of professional services.

The article mentioned in this episode is A Framework Theory of Legal Design for the Emergence of Change in the Digital Legal Society, by Joaquín Santuber & Lina Krawietz together with Dr. Jonathan Antonio Edelman and Babajide Owoyele (2019). The article can be read on Dunker & Humblot eLibrary here.