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6 - Design Comes to the Law School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2019

By
Margaret Hagan
Edited by
Catrina Denvir
Catrina Denvir
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
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Summary

This chapter documents how the Legal Design Lab at Stanford University has integrated design thinking into law school technology curriculum. In this chapter we profile the objectives of the lab and explore the work the lab has undertaken to introduce new opportunities for skill acquisition through design thinking courses, innovation sprints, and workshops. We explore the purpose, process, and outcomes of these new experiments in legal education, and overview the interdisciplinary methods we have developed, brought from design schools and human-computer interaction programmes. We detail examples of the specific types of classes, sprints, and workshops run, how we define learning outcomes, and how we evaluate student performance. Further, we explore the way in which we leverage technology to provide students with opportunities to acquire user research, mapping, rapid prototyping, and improved communication skills. Drawing on lessons observed over the life of the Design Lab, we conclude by reflecting on our experience of integrating design thinking into a law school programme and argue for the importance of design thinking as an aspect of technology training within and outside of law.

Keywords

legal design labdesign thinkinglegal educationhuman-computer interactionlaw studentsuser researchlegal technology
Type
Chapter
Information
Modernising Legal Education , pp. 109 - 125
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

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