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Law by design: how design can make legal
services more usable, useful & engaging
Detailed analysis of Margaret Hagan’s theory for the
understanding of law
Coralie Raffin, Clémence Desmares, Louis Brulé Naudet
University of Paris-Dauphine (Paris Sciences et Lettres)
Contents
1 At the interface between information theory and legal sciences, an
emerging discipline for the accessibility of law 1
1.1 Starting point and generalities: design as a methodology to
create a document more understandable to the non-specialist . 3
1.2 An effective and educational way to understand the law that
is still in development among professionals . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 A promising technique for representing the law subject to its own
methodology 9
2.1 A plurality of legal designs sacralizing freedom and flexibility . 10
2.2 Between the power of representation in the hands of the de-
signer and favourable foundations on the part of the scientific
community: neutrality as a goal to be achieved . . . . . . . . 11
1 At the interface between information theory and legal sci-
ences, an emerging discipline for the accessibility of law
The relationship between citizens and the Law is ambiguous. While legisla-
tive texts and doctrine have never been so easily accessible, thanks to the
Internet, — far from the not-so-distant past, when the Law was only accessi-
ble to professionals — citizens still seem to be suspicious of the Law1. Indeed,
in France for example, 88% of people consider that legal content is too com-
plex2. The situation is not really better in the United Kingdom, where more
than a half of the population feels that the justice system is inaccessible3.
This complexity is of course justifiable by the need for a « legal language »,
specific jargon and methods of reasoning respecting the legal logic. However,
the observation remains the same. Moreover, this is not only the opinion
of lay people: the French Constitutional Council, in a case called « Loi de
finance pour 2006 », considered that the Law was « excessively complex in
relation to the ability of those to whom it is addressed to usefully assess its
scope » and that this would « restrict the exercise of the rights and freedoms
guaranteed ». The accessibility of the Law is therefore a highly important
topic4, that jurists have to take into account5. This is what Margaret Hagan
did thanks to her work, which is part of a wider reflection on Legal Design.
1Y. Algan and P. Cahuc. La société de défiance: comment le modèle social français
s’autodétruit. Collection du CEPREMAP. Rue d’Ulm, 2007.
2Infostat Justice, janvier 2014, enquête réalisée en novembre 2013 auprès d’un échantil-
lon de 3000 personnes représentatives de la population française (https://www.justice.
gouv.fr/modernisation-de-la-justice- du-21e-siecle- 12563/)
3O. Bowcott. Only one-quarter of britons believe legal system is fair. The Guardian,
2015.
4L. Benezech. L’exigence d’accessibilité et d’intelligibilité de la loi : retour sur vingt
ans d’existence. Rev. fr. droit const., 1283(3):541, 2020.
5L. Drai M. Béjean. Innovation, collaboration et droit. Rev. fr. gest., 43(269):185–206,
2017.
1
The main idea behind legal design is to use design to make legal services
more usable, useful and engaging6. Even though it is said that legal design
was born in 2013 (from the meeting of lecturers at Stanford Law School and
the Stanford Institute of Design, including Hagan), traces of it can be found
in some kind of trees used by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages to
help illiterate people understand the complex rules of marriage. Nowadays,
elements of everyday life can be considered as part of legal design in a broad
meaning, such as traffic signs or the Nutriscore in France7.
Hagan is originally from Pittsburgh and graduated from Stanford Law
School in June 20138. In parallel to her law studies, she was a student at
the Center for Internet & Society and was president of the Stanford Law
and Technology Association. Since the end of her studies, she has wanted to
make Law funnier, more interactive, especially by creating a mobile game.
Furthermore, thanks to her book Law by Design9, she is considered as one
of the pioneers and a reference in the Legal design field.
6Synthetically, a correct definition would be as follows: « legal design is the application
of human-centered design to the world of law, to make legal systems and services more
human-centered, usable, and satisfying ».
7For more details, refer to the order of October 31, 2017 setting the form of presenta-
tion complementary to the nutritional declaration recommended by the State pursuant to
Articles L. 3232-8 and R. 3232-7 of the Public Health Code
8Margaret Hagan, bibliography. URL https://law.stanford.edu/directory/
margaret-hagan/.
9M. Hagan. Law by design. URL https://lawbydesign.co.
2
1.1 Starting point and generalities: design as a methodology to
create a document more understandable to the non-specialist
Margaret Hagan is the Executive Director of the Legal Design Lab of the
Stanford University. This structure has different missions, but we will be
focusing on the part related to the question of how design can bring effec-
tive and ethical innovations to the legal system. The hypothesis of Margaret
Hagan is that visual design, but also clear language, can improve the work
produced by lawyers to communicate law to lay-people. Jurists, design-
ers, but also professionals working in other disciplines, such as linguists or
communicators, must collaborate. Therefore, legal design is inherently pluri-
disciplinary10. The idea is to put the client in the center of the reflection11,
and of the juridical production, to improve the users experience. The starting
point of legal design is the users needs and expectations on which the Laws
presentation is based, and not the other way around. In this regard, design
is used as a methodology to create a more comprehensible document for the
uninitiated, thanks to a better hierarchization of the information and the use
of infographics. These infographics, but also videos, form the part called «
Visual Law » of legal design12, but it should not be limited to that. Indeed,
an essential aspect of this method is that the accessibility and clarification
of legal elements should not turn into oversimplification. The role of plain
language is crucial. All important information should be conveyed, the only
10Owoyele B. Krawietz L. Edelman J. Santuber, J. The need for a legal design metathe-
ory for the emergence of change in the creative legal society. 2018.
11R. Yankovskiy. Legal design: New thinking and new challenges. 2019:76, 05 2019.
12« This means illustrating cases — putting the human situations back into the legal
opinions — creating flowcharts out of rules — and thinking about how we can convert com-
plicated text into clear, digestible, graphic presentations ». https://www.openlawlab.
com/project-topics/illustrated-law-visualizations/.
3
change lies in the way it is presented. In fact, legal design can be summarized
by this quote: « be simple on the front, and smart at the back ». Those legal
texts are not only laws or rulings, since the method also applies to contracts,
information notes, intern guidelines in companies or general conditions of
sale (like the example presented under).
Figure 1: The Tesco Credit Card General Conditions.
As can be observed, the goal is not always to create a very fancy doc-
ument, with a lot of colors and images. Here, the objective was simply to
summarize in a comprehensive way the general conditions regarding Tesco
credit cards13, by using a simpler vocabulary and presenting information with
clear titles and organization. When these documents, which are essential for
consumer rights, are presented in a more attractive way, they are more likely
to be read and consumers are thus better protected and have better access
to their rights.
13https://www.tescobank.com/credit-cards/terms-and- conditions/.
4
Of course, legal design cannot be limited to Margaret Hagan. Other
initiatives used that idea, especially the fact that with the image it is the
reality which is reflected from the start. Therefore, the writing was formed
from stylized images which symbolized successfully a thing, an idea and fi-
nally a sound14. Indeed, in 2009, a designer called Candy Chang created an
illustrated guide to street-vending rules in New-York. She considered that
the language used in the original administrative code was far too complicated,
especially for street-vendors, whose native language is often not English15.
At the same time, we are beginning to see a plurality in the expression of
legal design, with more pictorial, colorful and illustrated modes of communi-
cation, generally using the combination of icon and text to express a single
idea.
Figure 2: The « Street Vendor Guide » distributed in New York City.
14J. Onimus. Puissances de l’image. Étrangeté de l’art, pages 89–106, 1992.
15S. Knafo. Visual aids for the pushcart world. New York Times, 2009.
5
1.2 An effective and educational way to understand the law that
is still in development among professionals
As this example shows, Legal Design had and still has a huge impact on
practices. Incontestably, the creation of the Stanford Legal Design Lab was
the starting point for the success of this method. After that, other initiatives
used the concept, even pushing it further. The consideration to keep in
mind then seems to focus on the great mutability that the practice offers
to professionals, who can refine their illustrations according to the intended
target. Its importance on the job market has taken on a whole new dimension,
and the universalism conveyed by the implementation of such representation
in companies has positive impacts on hiring. A famous example is the case of
Robert de Rooy, commercial attorney and developer of the Comic Contract16 ,
a contract that sets out all the clauses in the form of a comic strip17, to enable
workers, most of whom are at least semi-literate, to understand and sign
it18. This aspect of legal design is much more simplifying than the previous
example. It shows the variety of possibilities offered by this method. It is
tailored on the needs of the users: the more familiar the users are with the
language of law, the more precise and detailed the documents can be, and
vice versa19.
16T. Barton, G. Berger-Walliser, and H. Haapio. Contracting for innovation and inno-
vating contracts: an overview and introduction to the special issue. Journal of Strategic
Contracting and Negotiation, 2:3–9, 03 2016.
17« A comic contract is a legally binding agreement that represents the parties as char-
acters. Pictures capture the terms, with only minimal written text. The parties agree to
the contract by signing the comic itself ».
18E. Pitkäsalo and L. Kalliomaa-Puha. Democratizing access to justice: the comic con-
tract as intersemiotic translation. Translation Matters, 1:30–42, 01 2019.
19It should be noted, however, that the cost associated with the production of comic
contracts will have to be considered into the company’s expenses and may represent a
significant portion of the recruitment budget.
6
Figure 3: The « Comic Contract » by Robert de Rooy.
More generally, the impact of Legal design has to be linked with the pro-
liferation of LegalTech20. These structures embody the evolution of practices,
not only in Law, but also in other areas. The aim of these legaltechs is to au-
tomate the legal service, notably through document generating algorithms,
and thus establishing a new relationship between the client and the legal
professional. Legal design has been carried by this wave wishing to renew
practices by adapting them to new modes of communication while improving
communication with clients.
Indeed, if this model is beginning to attract interest, it is because it
was the response to many requests from legal professionals. Today, a large
part of the potential clientele is not captured by lawyers, due to a lack of
understanding of what they could bring them in various situations. From
20L. Cadiet. Les marchés du droit. Conclusions. Rev. int. droit écon., (4):127, 2017.
7
this point of view, Legal design explains in an efficient and educational way
the interest of contacting a lawyer21 and therefore, attracts the 80% of French
people who do not contact a lawyer, even though they know they need one.
This is for example the point of view of a lawyer and an expert in legal design,
founders of Lexclair in France. The investment in the creation of the structure
is paid back by the clientele it brings. In addition, the clarity of information
creates a better relationship with the client: he feels free to express his needs
and trusts his lawyer. Therefore, there is a greater possibility that the latter
will be recommended, creating a virtuous circle. On top of that, lawyers also
want to change their own practices: Internet and Legaltech already changed
the way they search information or the way they contact clients, so why not
the way they explain things to them? Indeed, lawyers are jurists, went to law
school, and never learned how to explain things to lay people. Legal design
is one of the answers to this communication problem.
Moreover, the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) which is forcing companies to explain this judicial issue clearly
helped promoting legal design as a way to solve it22. More generally, it is
possible to understand the success of Legal design by the world we live in.
Thanks to the Internet, but also the omnipresence of publicity, image has
taken an important place. This, coupled with the fact that in the legal world
or elsewhere, everything has to be understood and done in record time, also
explains the success of Legal design. Clients do not have the time to examine
and analyze legal documents they do not really understand. Both potential
21L. Montant. Legal design : vers une transformation radicale de l’expérience client des
cabinets d’avocats. Dalloz Actualités, 2020.
22L. Shephered K. Renaud. How to make privacy policies both GDPR-compliant and
usable. Dalloz Actualités, 2018.
8
clients and legal professionals can find interest in Legal design, and this
adaptability to them and to our world is certainly one of the main reasons
of its success and impact.
2 A promising technique for representing the law subject to
its own methodology
In order to promote Legal design, it was necessary to prove its value and
potential efficacy. The first scientific basis, as already mentioned, is the poor
accessibility to justice for a large part of the population. Nevertheless, Mar-
garet Hagan also needed to give some proof of the efficiency of design to cure
such a problem. To do so, she relied on different studies that considered that
one way to fight against the understanding problem of law was to redesign
their « content, language, and presentation format »23. Another study, called
« Consumer Comprehension of Financial Privacy Notices »24 concluded that
clients needed a particular presentation of the information (the part-to-whole
display), to understand the issues of the document. These background find-
ings and a lot of others are published and promoted on the legaltechdesign
website25. Undeniably, legal design is based on scientific observations and
responds to a real problem, observed both empirically and by legal profes-
sionals. Furthermore, what can be observed is that the data collection on
which is based the need for legal design has not been done by legal designers.
They relied on external sources.
23I. Pollach. Whats wrong with online privacy policy, communications of the acm.
Communications of the ACM, 50, 2007.
24M. Hastak A. Levy. Consumer comprehension of financial privacy notices : A report
on theresults of thequantitative testing. InteragencyNotice Project, 2008.
25https://legaltechdesign.com/communication-design/
9
2.1 A plurality of legal designs sacralizing freedom and flexibility
Regarding methodology, it seems that legal design does not impose any clear
rules. There is a common objective: making law more understandable. For
example, the founder of Lexclair in France is proposing to write short sen-
tences (usually less than 25 words) using the active voice, eliminating as
many incisions as possible and placing the main idea at the beginning of the
sentence26.
More than a methodology, Hagan is giving some principles and recom-
mendations to follow in order to succeed. These principles, highlighted on
the website, were actually developed by Hagan students working in groups.
It consists for example in being empathetic with the potential clients, to
put yourself in their shoes to test their reaction to your production. The
website is also suggesting, in addition to the infographics, to add several dif-
ferent models for how to provide notice in a legal situation. This includes
the model called « Roadmap with Zoom »: a large map of the notice and
message, which the user can then zoom in and out of27 . But these models
are only suggested to help others adopting legal design methods.
In reality, it is possible to consider that this flexibility and this freedom
is inherent in legal design: each law firm or each lawyer must be able to
adapt this methodology to his specialty, his clients, and their needs. This
freedom is at the same time the strength of legal design but can also become
its weakness. Indeed, the lack of a framework could lead to manipulation
26S. Lapisardi. Qu’est-ce que le langage juridique clair. JCP E., (51), 2019.
27The website precises that the user chooses where to focus and can see both the com-
plexity all at once from a distance, or zoomed into a particular part of it.
10
of the concept. Since Margaret Hagan’s name will remain linked to this
methodology in any case, this could be risky if it is misused. For example, the
infographics could be used to circulate false legal texts or oversimplifications,
along the lines of legal tech concepts.
On another aspect of the problem, legal design must remain a gateway to
the law and not become the law itself, otherwise it will lose its complexity,
which, although restrictive, gives it the status of a science. In case of a
presentation of a text of law through legal design, a redirection to the full
text would be a good principle.
2.2 Between the power of representation in the hands of the de-
signer and favourable foundations on the part of the scientific
community: neutrality as a goal to be achieved
Even though some critics consider that legal design ends in babyish language,
the opinion of the scientific community is quite favorable to legal design.
They see it as an opportunity for lawyers to create « added value »28. Others
consider that it is a way to « Bring the non-lawyer closer to legal professionals,
to bring them closer to the Law » and end the rebarbative image law has29 .
While enthusiastic about the positive impacts of legal design on the ac-
cessibility of law, Bruno Dondero, Sorbonne’s professor, is addressing the
problem that legal design could be orientated. It is the designer of the legal
design who is the only one able to determine when and how the rights of
28F. Creux-Thomas. Legal design, gadget or opportunity for lawyers ? JCP E., (51),
2019.
29G. Brenas. L’intérêt du legal design pour les professionnels du droit. Revue pratique
de la prospective et de l’innovation, (2), 2019.
11
a party or a litigant « are made accessible to him... or not! »30. In fact,
the power is always in the hands of the designer. That is certainly a very
important limitation of legal design.
As a consequence, it means we have to trust that legal designers are
not biased, and that the materials they provide is not swayed by personal
opinions. Since legal design can draw the attention to specific points and
issues, we have to make sure it highlights the objectively more significant
information, and not what the designers want to shed more light on because of
their personal beliefs. This dimension is likely to be all the more important as
the financial weight of the implementation of a collaborative work is not to be
neglected for the companies, and could influence the quality of representation.
Thus, one could be led to think that the burden of producing high quality
work is very substantial and sometimes prohibitive or to the detriment of
objectivity.
Alternatively, it seems to be an unfamiliar concept and legal professionals
seem to remain reluctant or unaware of the benefits of using such a solution31.
We regret that there are not enough studies on the use of legal design by
professionals, and even if it remains a young concept, a good research project
would be to question a large sample of practitioners on their vision of the
transmission of law.
30B. Dondero. Legal design. parler de design à propos du droit a-t-il un sens ? JCP G.,
(4), 2019.
31Excluding the Legaltetchs which seem to derogate from the rule but remain marginal.
12
References
Margaret Hagan, bibliography. URL https://law.stanford.edu/
directory/margaret-hagan/.
M. Hastak A. Levy. Consumer comprehension of financial privacy notices : A
report on theresults of thequantitative testing. InteragencyNotice Project,
2008.
Y. Algan and P. Cahuc. La société de défiance: comment le modèle social
français s’autodétruit. Collection du CEPREMAP. Rue d’Ulm, 2007.
T. Barton, G. Berger-Walliser, and H. Haapio. Contracting for innovation
and innovating contracts: an overview and introduction to the special
issue. Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation, 2:3–9, 03 2016.
L. Benezech. L’exigence d’accessibilité et d’intelligibilité de la loi : retour
sur vingt ans d’existence. Rev. fr. droit const., 1283(3):541, 2020.
O. Bowcott. Only one-quarter of britons believe legal system is fair. The
Guardian, 2015.
G. Brenas. L’intérêt du legal design pour les professionnels du droit. Revue
pratique de la prospective et de l’innovation, (2), 2019.
L. Cadiet. Les marchés du droit. Conclusions. Rev. int. droit écon., (4):127,
2017.
F. Creux-Thomas. Legal design, gadget or opportunity for lawyers ? JCP
E., (51), 2019.
13
B. Dondero. Legal design. parler de design à propos du droit a-t-il un sens ?
JCP G., (4), 2019.
M. Hagan. Law by design. URL https://lawbydesign.co.
L. Shephered K. Renaud. How to make privacy policies both GDPR-
compliant and usable. Dalloz Actualités, 2018.
S. Knafo. Visual aids for the pushcart world. New York Times, 2009.
S. Lapisardi. Qu’est-ce que le langage juridique clair. JCP E., (51), 2019.
L. Drai M. Béjean. Innovation, collaboration et droit. Rev. fr. gest., 43(269):
185–206, 2017.
L. Montant. Legal design : vers une transformation radicale de l’expérience
client des cabinets d’avocats. Dalloz Actualités, 2020.
J. Onimus. Puissances de l’image. Étrangeté de l’art, pages 89–106, 1992.
E. Pitkäsalo and L. Kalliomaa-Puha. Democratizing access to justice: the
comic contract as intersemiotic translation. Translation Matters, 1:30–42,
01 2019.
I. Pollach. Whats wrong with online privacy policy, communications of the
acm. Communications of the ACM, 50, 2007.
Owoyele B. Krawietz L. Edelman J. Santuber, J. The need for a legal design
metatheory for the emergence of change in the creative legal society. 2018.
R. Yankovskiy. Legal design: New thinking and new challenges. 2019:76, 05
2019.
14
