Lawyer and designer.
I'm the Executive Director of the Stanford Legal Design Lab, where I bring human-centered design into the legal system, so that courts, legal help, and new AI tools work better for the people who need them.
This is a small home base. Most of my work lives elsewhere.
Stanford Legal Design Lab
legaltechdesign.comThe Stanford Law School lab I founded and direct. Events, classes, research, and technology projects on legal design, access to justice, and AI. This is the best place to see what I am working on now.
Law by Design
lawbydesign.coMy free, open-access book. A hands-on guide to using design to make legal services more usable, useful, and engaging.
Razblint
razblint.comMy drawing portfolio: colorful, maximalist drawings and surface patterns, plus a whole section of law drawings, including my law school flowcharts and illustrated cases.
Law Dojo
lawdojo.comA game for learning the law, which I designed and built. A new version is on the way.
New version coming soonOpen Law Lab
openlawlab.comMy original blog on legal design and innovation, where I first worked these ideas out.
Archive, no longer updatedI am a lawyer and designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. As Executive Director of the Stanford Legal Design Lab, and a lecturer at Stanford Law School and the Stanford d.school, I research, design, and build new ways to make the civil justice system work for ordinary people.
My work spans forms and court notices, websites and apps, AI tools, courthouse services, and the policies around them. I lead interdisciplinary student teams in partnership with courts, legal aid groups, and local governments, and I chaired the American Bar Association Task Force on Evictions, Housing Stability, and Equity, which is currently on pause.
I came to this work from a winding path. I grew up in Pittsburgh, studied at the University of Chicago, earned a master's at Central European University in Budapest, and completed a PhD in International Politics at Queen's University Belfast as a Marshall Scholar. I then went to Stanford Law School, where I built the game app Law Dojo to make studying more engaging, and launched the first version of the Legal Design Lab as a fellow at the d.school.
I am a visual thinker and a hands-on maker. I draw, I build tools, and I write. Alongside my legal work I run the art brand Razblint, and I co-authored the book Rituals for Work (Wiley) on how teams can work with more creativity and care. Away from the desk I knit, sew, throw pottery, travel and pick up languages, and follow baseball. What ties it together is a belief in participatory design: getting many different people, including kids, into the room to shape the systems and policies that affect them. Design, for me, is a way to widen access, to make hard systems legible, and to bring more people into them.
Writing and publication work.
You can find more of my papers, chapters, and articles on Google Scholar and SSRN, which stay current as new work goes out.
- Rituals for Work
- Guest Editor, Design Issues: The Rise of Legal Design
- Towards Human-Centered Standards for Legal Help AI
- Legal Design as a Thing: A Theory of Change and a Set of Methods to Craft a Human-Centered Legal System
- Participatory Design for Innovation in Access to Justice
- Introduction to Design Thinking for Law
- The User Experience of the Internet as a Legal Help Service
Recognition
- Rebuilding Justice Award Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), 2020
- Elected member The American Law Institute
- ABA Women of Legal Tech American Bar Association
- ABA Legal Rebel ABA Journal, honoring changemakers in law
- Fastcase 50 Honoree, for innovation in law and legal technology
- Marshall Scholar For graduate study in the United Kingdom
Speaking
I speak and give keynotes on legal design, access to justice, and AI in the legal system, at universities, courts, bar associations, and design and technology conferences around the world.
To invite me to speak, get in touch below.
Say hello.
For collaborations, speaking, press, or a friendly note about legal design, the best way to reach me is on LinkedIn.