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Discipline

Legal design

Applies human-centered design to the world of law: legal documents, services and systems that people can understand and use.

In Spanish
Diseño legal
Origin
Several antecedents; formulated by Hagan (2020), of the Stanford Legal Design Lab

What it deals with

Contracts, procedures and courts are usually designed for specialists. Those who are not do not understand their rights or know what to do.

Principles

  • Visual

    Present legal information so it can be understood.

  • Product

    Create tools that help people complete a procedure.

  • Service

    Design the person's journey from the problem to the solution.

  • Organization and system

    Change how courts, law firms and public agencies work together.

Applications in design

  • Use it like this

    Test legal documents with people who are not lawyers.

  • Avoid

    Simplifying the text so much that it loses its legal validity.

  • Don’t fall for it

    Work with lawyers from the start: design does not replace legal knowledge.

Methods and tools

  • ApproachPrivacy by designProtecting personal data from the first sketch, with the most private option already set.

Authors and works

  1. 2020

    Margaret Hagan

    Described legal design as a way to change the legal system starting from people and using design methods.

Sources

Original sources

  • Hagan, M. (2020). Legal design as a thing: A theory of change and a set of methods to craft a human-centered legal system. Design Issues, 36(3), 3–15. View source: Hagan, M. (2020)

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