Gideon Legal
An innovative platform aims to streamline and enhance legal client intake processes for law firms.
UX.UI
Alice Liu
Role:
Researcher, UI designer
Team Size:
2
Date:
2022-2024
Duration:
2 Years
Overview
To onboard a new client and complete their case, a law firm typically uses 3-4 different tools throughout the process, leading to higher subscription costs and a lack of efficiency. Our client law firms are in need of an integrated platform to address these client intake challenges. As the sole designer over the span of two years, I took on multifaceted responsibilities, including initial interviews, UX research, Interface design, QA testing, and cohesive branding, ensuring the platform met the highest standards from inception to launch.
I successfully delivered an end-to-end solution to streamline and automate the legal client intake process for our client law firms. The product features dynamic intake forms with customizable rules and logic, automated document generation, a user-friendly chatbot, and a timeline view for managing follow-up actions. The platform has been successfully launched and is currently used by 5+ law firms in New York areas.
Stakeholder Interviews
To kick off the project, I conducted comprehensive stakeholder interviews, starting with in-depth discussions with the CEOs of our client law firms. These initial interviews aimed to gain a deep understanding of the overarching goals and pain points in the legal client intake process. Following these initial sessions, I held weekly meetings with key stakeholders, including partners, and administrative staff, to iterate on ideas and gather continuous feedback.
Here are the specific areas we focused on:
Current Workflow Analysis: I worked closely with stakeholders to examine intake cases from 5 law firms in the fields of tenant/landlord law, estate law, social media violence, and banking law. This comprehensive task analysis was conducted to understand the current workflow and identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement. The insights gathered from this analysis were instrumental in shaping the platform's features and functionalities.
Pain Points Identification: Stakeholders highlighted the challenges they face with existing tools, such as static intake forms, time-consuming manual data entry, and difficulties in tracking client status. This information was crucial in shaping the platform’s feature set.
Desired Features and Functionality: Stakeholders provided input on essential features they wanted in the new platform. Common requests included dynamic intake forms, automated document generation, and a user-friendly interface for both clients and staff.
User Experience Expectations: We discussed the importance of a seamless user experience, ensuring that the platform would be intuitive and easy to navigate for both legal professionals and their clients.
Technical Constraints and Integrations: Understanding the existing technical infrastructure and any constraints was vital. Stakeholders expressed the need for the platform to integrate with their current systems and software, such as document management and billing systems.
Legal Compliance and Security: We addressed concerns related to legal compliance and data security, ensuring that the platform would adhere to industry standards and regulations to protect sensitive client information.
The insights gathered from these interviews were instrumental in defining the project’s scope and priorities. They allowed us to create a clear vision for the platform that aligned with the real-world needs and expectations of our target users.
Competitor Research & MVP
Competitor Analysis:
Our clients (law firms) previously used static intake forms or written call scripts to complete new client intake. This process was time-consuming and made document generation extremely difficult. To explore ways to automate the time-consuming client intake process, I spent 4 weeks conducting an extensive analysis of competitor products, including Typeform, Zoho Survey, Service Bell, and Lawpay. This research focused on evaluating their features, user experience, and shortcomings. By identifying key functionalities and areas where these products fell short, I was able to determine which features would be most impactful for our platform. Guided by these insights and feedback from stakeholder interviews, I defined the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Product MVP:
The MVP prioritized dynamic intake forms with customizable rules and logic, automated document generation, and a user-friendly chatbot. This strategic focus ensured we could deliver a product that met the critical needs of our clients and provided a solid foundation for future improvements.
Working with the devs
Collaboration with cross-functional teams, including front-end and back-end developers, was crucial to the success of this project. A core user need was to collect data points from each question to generate legal documents, which presented several technical constraints. I worked closely with our developers on a daily basis to understand and address these challenges.
One significant technical constraint was the need for users to manually create variables for each data point. To streamline this process, we designed features that allowed users to easily search and edit these variables. This required extensive collaboration with the back-end team to ensure the database structure could support dynamic data handling and with the front-end team to create an intuitive user interface for variable management.
Regular communication and iteration were key. We held daily stand-up meetings to discuss progress, troubleshoot issues, and align on priorities. This agile approach allowed us to quickly address any technical hurdles and make continuous improvements based on real-time feedback.
Throughout the project, the collaboration between designers, developers, and stakeholders was integral to creating a robust and efficient solution. By leveraging the expertise of each team member, we were able to overcome technical constraints and deliver a platform that met the high standards and expectations of our clients.
Solution to Document Generation
The current document generation feature allows users to automatically compile legal documents by collecting data points from each question in the intake form. This process is streamlined with the ability to easily search and edit variables, ensuring accuracy and efficiency.
Intuitive UI Design - Introducing Gideon Legal
Gideon Legal SaaS is a comprehensive platform designed to revolutionize the client intake process for law firms. Key features include dynamic intake forms with customizable rules and logic, automated document generation for seamless legal paperwork, and a user-friendly chatbot for intuitive client interactions. These features work together to streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and improve client experiences.
Dynamic Intake Forms
Our dynamic intake forms tackle the main challenges in the client intake process by turning complicated logic into an engaging, easy-to-use format. These forms guide clients and staff through questionnaires in a way that feels intuitive and straightforward. The forms support a variety of logic options for different question types, including dates, multiple choices, address, DOB, disclaimer, short & long text, status changes, sending emails, requesting documents, setting reminders, branching logic, action delays, and more. This powerful logic capability allows for smooth integration of complex workflows, making it much quicker and easier to gather the necessary client information and streamline the entire intake process.
Status and Evaluation Tracking
Law firms need a feature to track and evaluate information collected from the intake form to decide on follow-up actions. Research and interviews showed that a 'tag' or what we now called a 'status' is generally consistent within each case type. For example, in the case type of writing a will, law firms collect information from respondents and assign them one of the following statuses: Potential New Client (PNC), Pending Review, or Disqualified. From there, clients can choose corresponding follow-up actions such as sending a document for signature or reevaluating pending cases to increase conversion.
The Status feature allows law firms to create parent and sub-statuses based on case types, which can be assigned to respondents from intake form to case end, ensuring they can track the composition of their new intakes, and create customized actions for each of the status.
Timeline for Follow-up Actions
The Timeline feature supports law firms' needs to create follow-up actions with potential clients after the intake form is completed. During interviews, it became evident that compared to other forms of visual representation, such as a Kanban board, a timeline view is more intuitive for attorneys to create and manage logic branches and client actions. This timeline view allows attorneys to see the sequence of actions and events at a glance, making it easier to plan and execute follow-up tasks.
To develop this feature, I utilized building blocks as the basic units for creating actions on the timeline. Each block represents a specific task or event, which can be easily arranged and connected to reflect the necessary sequence of follow-up actions. This approach not only simplifies the management of client interactions but also provides a scalable foundation for future development. By building on this flexible framework, the platform can adapt to evolving client needs and incorporate additional features and functionalities over time, ensuring that the Timeline feature remains a powerful tool for law firms.
Web Design & Branding
Thruought the design process, I developed a cohesive branding strategy that included establishing a design system. I defined brand guidelines, selected color schemes, typography, and iconography, and designed a suite of reusable UI components to maintain a unified and professional look and feel. Additionally, I worked with our client to create custom illustrations, designing the product landing website and engaged in multiple branding campaigns to effectively promote the platform and enhance its market presence.
Summary
As the sole designer over a span of two years, I delivered a comprehensive solution to streamline and automate the legal client intake process. My work transformed inefficient, static forms into dynamic, responsive ones by integrating features from competitor reviews and adding customizable rules and logic for guided question flows.
I collaborated closely with developers to ensure seamless document automation and implemented features for easy variable management. The platform's Status feature allows efficient client tracking through parent and sub-statuses, while the Timeline feature offers an intuitive view for managing follow-up actions.
In addition to functional enhancements, I developed a cohesive branding strategy with custom illustrations and a comprehensive design system, ensuring a professional and unified look. My extensive user research, stakeholder interviews, and iterative design process resulted in a platform now used by over five law firms in the New York area, significantly improving their client intake processes.
