Earlier this week, Fish & Richardson announced the formation of its Legal Technology Solutions Group, developed to create client-facing solutions that can be deployed within the firm. While Fish & Richardson has long invested in sending members of its existing development team to programs and seminars focused on design, this new endeavor doesn’t mean it will to stop relying on the talent of outside designers any time soon.

“I think you need an outside designer for just sanity checks, and then also we need to be learning continuously. There’s people that are out there who are experts and we’ll never be able to approach what they’re doing,” said Beau Mersereau, leader of the firm’s Legal Technology Solutions Group.

However, not every law firm putting skin in the legal tech game feels the same way. Kimball Dean Parker, president of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s technology subsidiary SixFifty, estimated that the split among firms who do or do not engage the services of a designer was about half and half.

Those who abstain may just be eager to bring a product quickly to market while other firms who approach the production of legal tech cautiously, or with a limited budget, may be more concerned with the question of whether hiring a designer is a wise or even necessary step.

“I could see some people thinking of it as kind of like a luxury to have a designer. Maybe they’re [developing solutions] and want to keep it on a low budget. But depending on the designer you get, I think it pays off to have one,” Parker said.

He’s not just talking about the technical expertise at play, either. At SixFifty, designers function as the stand in for the tech subsidiary’s target demographic, which is largely non-lawyers who want legal advice delivered quickly and without an onslaught of overly complicated jargon.

According to Parker, language is the main tug of war between the firm’s lawyers and designers.

“Our designer is always going for a clean, simplified look and feel and experience. Lawyers love to over-disclose on everything. Simple and clean, that’s not what lawyers typically do,” he said.

It’s that last part that can prove to be a liability to firms venturing into the legal tech market. Tomu Johnson, CEO of Parsons Behle Labs, said law firms typically have no idea how to build an app that satisfies modern day expectations, which in the abstract usually boil down to speed and intuitiveness.

Whereas an attorney may have an idea and be tempted to take it straight to an engineer to be built out, there’s a whole narrative that has to be fleshed out in-between: How is a user going to engage with this product? Where will they be engaging with this product? What should the experience feel like? Failure to acknowledge those questions can be costly for firms.

“They could be left with a product that ultimately isn’t going to serve the market at all. And I think firms find themselves really quickly spending money on a thing that isn’t ultimately going to be able to return any amount of money on their investment,” Johnson said.

However, with more firms starting to broach the possibility of developing their own legal tech solutions, there’s a chance that hiring an experienced designer will become a necessity, especially if there’s money to be found. Parker sees more successful law firm labs on the horizon, pointing out that SixFifty is on track to turn a profit for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

“I think that law firms have traditionally thought of labs as loss leaders and, you know, maybe they offer free tools. I that that perception is changing. … I think there’s going to be more investment as law firms see the return on it,” he said.

If and when that happens, Parker thinks firms may have trouble competing with traditional tech companies for top-tier design talent. But Jackson Ratcliffe, technology architect at Orrick’s tech subsidiary, Orrick Labs, doesn’t foresee that becoming an insurmountable issue.

“I think firms are starting to do more interesting things and to work in a much more collaborative way with this kind of talent, so the opportunities will become more attractive. And it’s still relative uncharted space, which tech talent loves,” Ratcliffe said.

Sometimes ambitions don’t have to be as grand as finding brand new territory on the map. At Fish and Richardson, they’ve set their sights on attainable goals like trying not to create products that frustrate their clients.

“The last thing you want someone doing is thinking about the applications itself. You want them thinking about the issue they are trying to resolve,” Mersereau said.