Innovation is a buzzword that many in the legal industry use as a way to describe their approach to solving legal challenges, or as a differentiator for their organization in a sea of highly competent and capable firms competing for sought-after clients. Firms know that having their clients consider them as innovative is crucial, and that the status quo of practice management is no longer optional. Firms also know that clients value and expect that the teams working with them are diverse in composition, capable of relating to their business and meeting all of their needs. As a result, legal organizations must be thoughtful, collaborative and operate in a manner that for many is different than how they have historically done business. Efficiency, inclusivity and creativity are not the cornerstone characteristics of most law firms, however, many are beginning to realize that the approaches and tools that got them to where they are today will not be the key ingredients to what gets them to where they want to go tomorrow.

Design thinking is a social technology that creates the conditions where innovation and creative problem solving can occur. To put it in Tim Brown's own words, one of the masterminds behind the framework, "design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology and the requirements for business success."

There are several different approaches to design thinking with many ranging from three to seven stages. The more common five stages are: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. Empathy focuses on others so we can better understand the value drivers of the users as design thinking reorients problem solving around the actual end user and their needs, motivations and challenges. Next, we need to define the root problem or opportunity by focusing on the empathy findings as that drives the greatest value outcome as often the problems we initially start out trying to solve are only symptomatic of bigger needs. The third stage of design thinking focuses on generating connections and possibilities that ultimately can be used to distill potential solutions. This is called ideating and the goal of this is to explore a wide variety of solutions, both in quantity and diversity of perspective. The prototype phase begins to focus on potential solutions by getting ideas out of people's heads and into the real world. Testing is the final phase and allows teams to gather insightful feedback, refine solutions and create visibility by identifying what worked, what can be improved and new questions that need to be addressed.

Innovation and process improvement in the legal industry can feel like an extremely high bar to achieve, however, innovation does not have to be grandiose or unique. Innovation can even be seen as a thoughtful and straightforward response to challenges or questions that arise. Implementing design thinking into your firm can help create new and effective ways of delivering legal services. The new knowledge and information taken from design thinking principles leads to opportunities for engagement, which is where the potential with using design thinking is so much greater than just solving challenges. Design thinking can also improve the inclusivity and diversity of perspectives from your organization when you invite cross-functional members of a team to participate in this process. We all know that lawyers tend to be change-averse, however, design thinking's goal is to alleviate some of the pain points that may stall progress toward an improvement. One of the ways it does this is through the time spent on focusing on the human elements and opportunities for collaboration, which are not always common in legal organizations. Design thinking can break through this by giving a voice and role to everyone in problem solving through the use of ideating tools such as  sketch-storming, brain-writing and assumption challenges. Involving a diverse array of perspectives to reach a fresh outcome is one of the things that makes this method so valuable. The best solutions are created when the inputs are diverse and take into account different types of experiences, perspectives and thought processes.

To put it in a perspective that firms can relate to, international firm Hogan Lovells used design thinking to recreate its associate review process, which at the time was considered to be ineffective. The firm hired IDEO, an international design and consulting firm, to come at the dreaded annual review process from another angle, not only to make the process more transparent but to also make it more efficient and effective for everyone involved. The team at IDEO created "Pathways" that calls for quarterly, 10-minute feedback meetings from at least three different people an associate has worked with in that time period. The associate then discusses the information from those feedback meetings with another peer in order to implement and process the feedback. Having members of your firm get first-hand design thinking training is beneficial, too. For instance, a partner from the Silicon Valley office at Faegre Baker Daniels, (the firm and Philadelphia-based Drinker Biddle & Reath formally merged into Faegre Drinker on Feb. 1), a Minnesota-based law firm of more than 750 lawyers, who after being introduced to the framework spent a year studying at Stanford's Legal Design Lab. Stanford's Legal Design Lab is "an interdisciplinary team … working at the intersection of human-centered design, technology and law to build a new generation of legal products and services." The lab's mission is threefold: training law students and professionals in human-centered legal design; developing new models of user-friendly, accessible and engaging legal services; and researching how innovation can be brought to the world of law and what legal users want. For Faegre Drinker, design thinking has "resulted in a litany of changes within the firm, including implementing design elements into client meetings, using design to analyze legal claims and tailoring design sprints to work in mock trials."

Some other examples firms can consider include: the opportunity to use design thinking to anticipate the legal needs of a significant client in the year ahead, as well as two to three years into the future; or thinking about an operational challenge like increasing the speed of the monthly billing process so clients receive their statements in a timely and thorough manner, thus enabling a quicker inflow of payments. Could the engagement of a process involving all the members of your team focused on challenges like this help create new solutions and deepen the client relationship? Would doing so shift the focus in your organization from silos to collaboration, from productivity to outcomes, and from the bottom line as a measure of success to a measure involving people, profits and purpose? According to Marshall Lichty's article "Design Thinking for Lawyers," firms should start small and "make sure to explicitly structure your process. If you have a team—and you plan to have its members join you on this maiden voyage—communicate your structure to them, together with your expectations for communication, collaboration, empathy and iteration."

If you are trying to be more in tune with what clients want or improve processes in your own organization, design thinking is incredibly helpful for beginning to examine your needs. And in a time when clients want outside counsel to know and understand their business and to be partners with them in that, taking a collaborative problem solving approach like design thinking with clients is a game changer for the client relationship and overall value delivered. This approach defines differentiation. David Gross, litigator and senior partner at Faegre Baker Daniels, (now Faegre Drinker) who has spent over 500 hours learning about design thinking said, "Using design thinking has had a huge impact in client relationships. I now have in-house counsel asking, 'Would you be willing to do a design sprint for our legal department?'" Additionally, finding ways to operate more efficiently or improve a process by including those involved in the process creates excellent engagement and team-building opportunities on top of problem solving. We all know nothing is constant, but change and for those professionals in the legal industry who understand the design thinking methodology, they will be better equipped to survive and thrive as the legal industry continues to evolve.

Jessica L. Mazzeo is chief operating officer of Griesing Law, where she focuses on overseeing and implementing all of the firm's business operations while establishing policies that promote and retain the firm's culture and strategic vision. Mazzeo is currently pursuing her law degree at Widener University Delaware School of Law. Contact her at 215-732-3922 or [email protected].

James L. Cornell leverages 20-plus years of management and leadership experience in law firms, along with service as a volunteer leader with the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA). He focuses on communication, collaboration, education, leadership, vision, and creative solution-generation to address the administrative and operational challenges of modern legal organizations. He serves as the current ALA president and he is the office administrator for Shook, Hardy & Bacon in the firm's Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. offices. Contact him at 202-639-5646 or [email protected].