Tag: court proceeding

Episode 58: Lean Thinking in Law with Isabell Storsjö and Ana Lúcia Martins

April 12, 2023 legaldesignpodcast Uncategorized 0 Comments
Ana Lúcia Martins and Isabell Storsjö

Welcome to this episode of our podcast where we will be discussing the concept of lean thinking in the context of law. Lean thinking, also known as Lean methodology, is a management philosophy that originated in the manufacturing industry and has since been applied to various fields, including healthcare, software development, and now law.

The core idea of lean thinking is to eliminate waste, increase efficiency, and continuously improve processes. In the legal industry, this approach has gained momentum in recent years as law firms and legal departments seek to increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve client satisfaction. Isabell and Ana have been researching how the Lean philosophy would also help on the public sector, especially in court proceedings.

In this episode, we will explore the principles of lean thinking and how they can be applied to the practice of law. We will also discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that come with implementing lean thinking in the legal industry.

Join us as we delve into the world of lean thinking in law and discover how this approach can help legal professionals achieve better results for their clients and themselves in the courtrooms.

Ana Lúcia Martins is an Assistant Professor at ISCTE-IUL and an integrated researcher at BRU-Iscte (Business Research Unt). She holds a PhD in Management, with a specialization in Operations Management and Technology. She currently serves as Iscte Business School Vice-dean for Teaching and Innovation, and as Vice-President of Iscte’s Pedagogical Council. Ana teaches Operations Management, Logistics Management, Service Operations Management, and Supply Chain Management. Ana has authored close to 100 scientific articles. She has authored book chapters in logistics management and lean management in the justice systems. Her current main research topics are operations management in humanitarian settings, logistics management, supply chain management, and lean management in the services area, mainly in judicial and healthcare systems.

Isabell Storsjö is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Law at the University of Turku. She holds a doctoral degree in Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility as well as a law degree, and has always been interested in topics that combine the two fields of knowledge. One of the areas where they intersect is justice system reform and legal process improvement, and Isabell started investigating the problems with prolonged legal proceedings, especially in Finland, in 2011. She has published on lean thinking in the justice system in academic journals and books, and has also done research on cooperation between actors in the criminal procedure in Finland. Isabell has followed legal design since attending the first Legal Design Summit as a law student, and is especially interested in the process (or service) design, organization design and system design levels of the concept.

Episode 47: Video Killed the Witnessing Fear with Nina Immonen and Tero Jyrhämä

September 28, 2022 legaldesignpodcast Uncategorized 0 Comments
Tero Jyrhämä and Nina Immonen.

Witnesses play a very important role as they help to clarify what has happened by telling the judge or jury everything they know about an event. Although their role is necessary in providing real-life elements and facts to the case to be judged, they possibly are the most neglected group of stakeholders when it comes to the court proceedings.

The process is often designed in a way that assumes witnesses already know how to behave throughout the trial. And while this might be the reality for some expert witnesses who go to court quite often, this certainly isn’t so with ordinary witnesses for whom a court proceeding probably is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event. 

Based on research, witnesses take the task seriously, but feel stressed and as if they were accused – even the invitation letters are written in an imperative language and there is a lack of information, for instance how to get to the courtroom, what is going to happen during the process and what their duties are about.

In this episode we interview senior specialist and district court judge Nina Immonen and public legal aid attorney Tero Jyrhämä, who took the challenge to create better experiences for witnesses with a group of students at the Laurea legal design and legal expertise programme. Tero and Nina tell us about the project and what they learned about the experiences of witnesses and how to best address them with human-centric design. We also discuss how to make legal design more mainstream in public legal services.

The guidance videos for witnesses that we are talking about can be found here: As a Witness in a Trial – YouTube and Tuomioistuinvirasto − Todistajana oikeudenkäynnissä – YouTube

Nina Immonen is a district court judge, currently working as a senior specialist at the National Court Administration in Finland, with a recently developed interest in legal design. “I feel passionate about new ways of communicating the legal field to people. It’s always a win win.”

Tero Jyrhämä is a next generation lawyer serving his legal knowledge understandably and emphatically. Today Tero works as a Public Legal Aid Attorney, incorporating his service design skills into his everyday work to the benefit of both his clients and employer.

This episode is brought to you by Precisely – the CLM platform setting a new standard for digital contracting. For more information, go to preciselycontractsl.com/ldp.