This chapter draws on more than a decade of work at the intersection of law, design, and technology. Below are the resources that have shaped my thinking — and that can help you go further. Whether you’re looking for something to read, a lab to partner with, a conference to attend, a tool to try, or a course to take, this page is your starting point.
Books
Law By Design — Margaret Hagan (2016–present) The open-access book (that you are reading now!). Covers legal design fundamentals, mindsets, process, and mechanics. https://lawbydesign.co
Legal Design: Dignifying People in Legal Systems — Miso Kim, Dan Jackson, & Jules Rochielle Sievert, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2024) Comprehensive introduction to legal design with community-driven case studies and method-focused projects from practitioners worldwide.
Rituals for Work — Kursat Ozenc & Margaret Hagan (Wiley, 2019). 50 design-driven rituals for transforming organizational culture — directly relevant to building the “Magic Circle” described in this chapter.
Rebooting Justice: More Technology, Fewer Lawyers, and the Future of Law — Benjamin H. Barton & Stephanos Bibas (Encounter Books, 2017). A provocative argument for reimagining legal service delivery with technology at the center.
Change by Design — Tim Brown (Harper Business, 2009). The foundational text on design thinking from the CEO of IDEO. Essential for understanding the mindsets and process that underpin legal design.
The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design — IDEO.org (2015). A free, practical toolkit for applying human-centered design to social challenges. Directly applicable to legal service redesign. https://www.designkit.org/resources/1
Don’t Make Me Think — Steve Krug (New Riders, 2000; 3rd ed. 2014) The classic on web usability. Essential reading for anyone designing legal websites, forms, or digital tools.
The Lean Startup — Eric Ries (Crown, 2011) The build-measure-learn methodology that informs how design-forward legal orgs prototype and iterate.
Dispute System Design: Preventing, Managing, and Resolving Conflict — Lisa Blomgren Amsler, Janet Martinez, & Stephanie Smith (Stanford University Press, 2020). How to design entire systems for handling conflict — the macro-level version of the organizational redesign described in this chapter.
Design-Driven Innovation — Roberto Verganti (Harvard Business Press, 2009). How to innovate by radically changing the meaning of products and services — a lens that applies powerfully to legal services.
More Human: Designing a World Where People Come First — Steve Hilton et al. (PublicAffairs, 2016). An argument for human-centered design across all public systems, including government and justice.
Academic Papers & Articles
Legal Design as a Thing: A Theory of Change and a Set of Methods to Craft a Human-Centered Legal System — Margaret Hagan, Design Issues 36(3), 2020. Frames legal design as a distinct discipline with its own theory of change. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4135869
A Human-Centered Design Approach to Access to Justice — Margaret Hagan, Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality 6(2), 2018. Presents prototypes and hypotheses for making courts more user-friendly. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijlse/vol6/iss2/2/
Human-Centered Civil Justice Design — Victor D. Quintanilla, Penn State Law Review 121(3), 2018 Connects psychological science on experiences of justice with human-centered design methods.
Airlines, Mayonnaise, and Justice: Reflections on the Theory and Practice of Legal Design and Technology — Gordon Ross, Design Issues 36(3), 2020. Reflects on what legal design can learn from service design in other industries.
Design Thinking: The Answer to the Impasse Between Innovation and Regulation — Alice Armitage et al., Georgetown Law Technology Review, 2017. Argues design thinking can bridge the gap between legal innovation and regulatory caution.
Legal Design for Practice, Activism, Policy and Research — Amanda Perry-Kessaris, Journal of Law and Society 46(2), 2019. A framework for applying legal design across practice, advocacy, and scholarship.
Design Thinking in Legal Practice Management — Mark Szabo, Design Management Review 21(3), 2010. Early exploration of how design thinking applies to law firm management and operations.
Human Dignity and Human Rights: Thoughts on the Principles of Human-Centered Design — Richard Buchanan, Design Issues 17(3), 2001. A foundational philosophical argument connecting human-centered design to dignity and rights.
Transforming Contracts from Legal Rules to User-Centered Communication Tools — Stefania Passera & Helena Haapio, Communication Design Quarterly, 2013. Pioneering work on redesigning contracts as communication tools, not just legal instruments.
Poverty Lawgorithms — Michele Gilman, Data & Society (2020). How algorithmic systems affect poverty law — essential reading for tech-forward legal organizations.
Labs & Research Programs
Stanford Legal Design Lab — Stanford Law School
Research lab working on access to justice innovation, AI for legal help, court user research, and the Legal Help Commons. Home of the AI + Access to Justice Summit and the Access to Justice Network. https://www.legaltechdesign.com
Suffolk University Legal Innovation & Technology Lab (LIT Lab) — Suffolk Law School. Develops open-source tools for courts and legal aid orgs, including Document Assembly Line, Court Forms Online and the Spot issue-spotter. Hosts the annual LIT Con conference and a collaborative legal tech textbook. https://suffolklitlab.org
NuLawLab — Northeastern University School of Law, Interdisciplinary innovation lab exploring the intersection of law, art, design, and technology. Led by Dan Jackson, co-editor of the Legal Design book. https://www.nulawlab.org
Law, Data, and Design Lab — Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. Uses data science, operations management, and design to improve fairness, efficiency, and access in justice systems. Led by Charlotte Alexander. https://www.scheller.gatech.edu
The Legal Design Lab (Corporate Accountability) — Corporate Accountability Lab, Develops legal innovation strategies to combat corporate impunity in global supply chains. Includes an Idea Bank for the corporate accountability community., https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/legal-design-lab
Legal Innovation Laboratory — University of New Brunswick, Studies participatory policy-making methods in e-justice design to enhance access to justice. Led by Argyri Panezi.
A2J Lab — Harvard Law School, Research lab focused on empirical evaluation of access-to-justice interventions. Rigorous measurement methodology. https://a2jlab.org
The Law Lab — Chicago-Kent College of Law (Illinois Tech)
Interdisciplinary teaching and research center directed by Daniel Martin Katz. Focuses on legal science, AI, and computational legal studies. Also houses the Center for Access to Justice and Technology, which developed A2J Author.
Center for Access to Justice and Technology (CAJT) — Chicago-Kent College of Law
Promotes the use of technology for public access to the law. Developed A2J Author, an expert system used by self-represented litigants to complete court forms.
Georgetown Justice Lab & Institute for Technology Law and Policy — Georgetown Law
Home of the Iron Tech Lawyer competition and Prof. Tanina Rostain’s experiential technology seminar. 17 full-time faculty researching technology-relevant legal issues.
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/
Vanderbilt AI Law Lab (VAILL) — Vanderbilt Law School
Focused on AI and law from a human-centered perspective. Champions radical collaboration and experimentation. Collaborates with law firms, bar associations, and the Nashville community.
https://law.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbilt-ai-law-lab/
LawX / Legal Design Lab — BYU Law School
Project-based legal design course. Created SoloSuit.com, free software helping defendants respond to debt collection lawsuits. Inspired by the Stanford Legal Design Lab.
https://law.byu.edu/explore/resources/centers-clinics/legal-design-clinic
AI Lab — University of Chicago Law School
Launched fall 2025. Students build AI tools for legal applications. First project: a nationwide database of rental law summaries.
Center for Design, Law & Technology (cΔ) — Chicago-Kent College of Law
Promotes research at the intersection of creativity, technology, design, and law. Hosts talks, workshops, and conferences on design thinking and legal innovation.
Melbourne Law School — Legal Technology — University of Melbourne, Australia
Offers courses modeled on Georgetown’s Iron Tech Lawyer approach. Active in the international legal design and technology community.
Bucerius Center for Legal Technology and Data Science — Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, Germany
European center focused on legal technology and data science. Led by Markus Hartung, with connections to the global computational legal studies community.
HiiL Justice Innovation Lab — The Hague, Netherlands
Global justice innovation organization. Runs justice needs surveys, innovation programs, and the Innovating Justice Challenge in partnership with courts and governments worldwide.
Singapore Management University Centre for Computational Law — SMU, Singapore
Research center focused on computational law and legal technology. Active participant in AI for access to justice workshops.
Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) — University of Denver
Works on court reform, legal profession modernization, and evidence-based improvements to the civil justice system.
Legal Design Alliance — International network
A global community connecting legal design practitioners, researchers, and educators. Maintains a reading list and resource collection.
https://www.legaldesignalliance.org
Legal Creatives — Helsinki, Finland
Legal design consultancy and training organization. Runs the Legal Design Summit and the Contract & Legal Design Practitioner Certification.
https://www.legalcreatives.com
Pro Bono Net — National network
Works on access to justice through technology, collaboration, and volunteer networks. Key partner in many law school innovation projects.
Legal Services Corporation (LSC) — U.S. federal funder
The largest single funder of civil legal aid in the U.S. Its Technology Initiative Grant program funds legal technology innovation.
ABA Center for Innovation — American Bar Association
Catalogs innovation centers at law schools and promotes innovation in legal service delivery. Tracks more than 15 law school innovation centers.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/centers_commissions/center-for-innovation/
Pew Charitable Trusts — Civil Legal System Modernization — Pew
Major funder of civil justice reform, court modernization, and access-to-justice technology. Supports data-driven approaches to system change.
National Center for State Courts (NCSC) — Williamsburg, VA
Research and consulting organization helping courts modernize operations, improve access, and adopt technology.
Justice Lab — The Hague, Netherlands
International hub for justice innovation. Works on rule of law, access to justice, and justice sector reform globally.
Courses, Certifications & Educational Programs
AI for Legal Help — Stanford Law School / Stanford d.school, Cross-listed law and design class where students partner with legal aid organizations to design and build AI solutions. Offered annually since 2023.https://justiceinnovation.law.stanford.edu
Legal Innovation and Technology Clinic — Suffolk University Law School, Clinical program where students build web tools for courts and legal aid orgs. Partners include Massachusetts Trial Court and legal aid programs nationwide, https://www.suffolk.edu/law/academics-clinics/clinics-experiential-opportunities/clinics/legal-innovation-and-technology-clinic
Coding the Law — Suffolk LIT Lab, Project-based course open to non-programmers. Students explore technical, legal, and ethical dimensions of legal technology by building their own tools, https://projects.suffolklitlab.org
Contract & Legal Design Practitioner Certification — Legal Creatives (Helsinki), Applied certification program where in-house lawyers and legal teams learn to redesign real contracts and legal documents. https://www.legalcreatives.com
d.school at Stanford — Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
The foundational design thinking program. Not law-specific, but teaches the process and mindsets that underpin all legal design work. https://dschool.stanford.edu
Conferences & Communities
AI + Access to Justice Summit — Stanford Legal Design Lab, Annual convening of legal professionals, technologists, regulators, and funders working on AI for access to justice. Two summits held so far (2024, 2025).
Legal Design Summit — Helsinki, Finland, The world’s largest legal design conference. Brings together 600+ lawyers, designers, technologists, and policymakers annually. Includes BrainFactory workshops and a certification program., https://legaldesignsummit.com
LIT Con — Suffolk LIT Lab, Boston, Single-day conference on legal innovation and technology. Features student access-to-justice projects, in-depth discussions, and the LIT Impact Award. https://suffolklitlab.org/events/lit-con/
FutureLaw — Tallinn, Estonia The Nordics’ largest legal innovation event. Covers AI, automation, dispute resolution, and productized legal services. https://futurelaw.ee
ABA TECHSHOW — American Bar Association, Chicago Annual conference exploring the intersection of law and technology. Broad audience from solo practitioners to Big Law.
Legal Geek — London, UK, Europe’s largest legal technology community. Conferences, meetups, and networking events throughout the year.
Code for America Summit — Code for America, Civic technology conference. Not law-specific, but the best place to connect with the public interest technology community discussed in Section 5 of this chapter. https://codeforamerica.org
JURIX Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems — International, Academic conference on AI and law. Recent editions have included workshops on AI for access to justice, co-organized by Stanford Legal Design Lab and Suffolk LIT Lab.
Access to Justice Network Conference — Hosted by Stanford Legal Design Lab, Successor to the Self-Represented Litigation Network (SRLN). Community of judges, court managers, attorneys, librarians, researchers, and technologists. https://a2jnetwork.org
Tools & Open-Source Projects
Court Forms Online / Document Assembly Line — Suffolk LIT Lab, Open-source tools and processes for creating mobile-friendly guided court forms. Used by thousands of people for everything from eviction defense to domestic violence protection. https://courtformsonline.org
Spot — Suffolk LIT Lab, AI-powered issue-spotting tool. Give it a plain-language description of a situation and it returns relevant legal issues. Used by several statewide legal aid portals. https://spot.suffolklitlab.org
Docassemble — Jonathan Pyle, Open-source platform for building guided interview tools that produce legal documents. The foundation for many court form automation projects., https://docassemble.org
Legal Issues Taxonomy (LIST) — Stanford Legal Design Lab, Shared vocabulary for classifying civil legal problems. Infrastructure for routing legal help at scale. https://taxonomy.legal
Legal Help Commons — Stanford Legal Design Lab, Initiative to build shared infrastructure — data standards, replicable tools, and reference architectures — so legal aid innovations can be replicated across jurisdictions. https://legalhelpcommons.org
JusticeBench — Stanford Legal Design Lab, AI R&D guide for the justice space, including for choosing projects and assessing the quality of legal help tools, https://justicebench.org
Case Studies & Reports
Prototyping Human-Centered Policies for Children in Nicaragua — United Nations. How human-centered design was used for complex policy-making. A model for legal organizations wanting to adopt design methods for system-level change.
Community Navigators for Access to Justice — Legal Link , How community navigators can promote access to justice and reduce poverty through a human-centered approach.
Embracing Disruption: How Technological Change in the Delivery of Legal Services Can Improve Access to Justice — Raymond H. Brescia et al., Examines how technology disruption can be harnessed — rather than feared — to improve access.
Justice Innovation Lab project profiles — Stanford Legal Design Lab, Documentation of design and development work, plus profiles of lawyers and technologists doing innovative work in legal services., https://justiceinnovation.law.stanford.edu
LSC Technology Summit Report — Legal Services Corporation, December 2025
Calls for shared tools, policies, and standardized technology projects implementable across jurisdictions.
Blogs, Publications & Ongoing Reading
Legal Design and Innovation — Stanford Legal Design Lab, Medium, Ongoing writing on legal design research, access to justice, AI, and innovation. https://medium.com/legal-design-and-innovation
Justice Innovation project — Stanford Legal Design Lab Project updates, research summaries, and write-ups from the Lab’s ongoing work. https://justiceinnovation.law.stanford.edu
Suffolk LIT Lab Blog — Suffolk LIT Lab, Updates on tools, research, and events from the LIT Lab. https://suffolklitlab.org
Design Issues — MIT Press, The premier academic journal on design. Published a special issue on legal design (Vol. 36, No. 3, 2020) featuring multiple articles on legal design theory and practice.
Design Thinking Foundations
The legal design methods discussed in this chapter draw on broader design thinking traditions. If you want to deepen your understanding of design process, mindsets, and facilitation, these are the foundational resources:
IDEO Human-Centered Design Toolkit — IDEO.org
Free downloadable toolkit with methods for research, synthesis, and prototyping.
Stanford d.school Resources — Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford
Method cards, facilitation guides, and teaching materials for design thinking.
https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources
Design Thinking for Social Innovation — Tim Brown & Jocelyn Wyatt, Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2010
Seminal article on applying design thinking to social challenges.
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers — Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, & James Macanufo (O’Reilly, 2010)
Practical exercises and facilitation techniques for running creative workshops — directly useful for the Toolkit section of this chapter.
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days — Jake Knapp (Simon & Schuster, 2016)
Google Ventures’ design sprint methodology. A structured approach to the kind of rapid prototyping discussed in Sections 4 and 6.
This resource list will continue to grow. If you know of a lab, tool, paper, or community that should be included, please reach out!