The legal system is meant to help people resolve life’s biggest challenges—divorce, eviction, job loss, bankruptcy—but for most, it remains confusing, costly, and overwhelming. In Prototyping Access to Justice, a Stanford d.school and Law School course, we tackled one of the most pressing design challenges of our time: how to make the legal system more accessible, human-centered, and effective for people without lawyers.

Taught by Margaret Hagan and myself, this hands-on course partnered directly with California courts to develop, test, and deploy real-world solutions that could be implemented immediately. Rather than theorizing about justice reform, students built and tested tangible interventions designed to make a measurable impact.

Building Systems That Work for People

Despite efforts to modernize, court systems remain fundamentally misaligned with user needs—forcing thousands of self-represented litigants to navigate complex legal processes with little guidance. This course gave students the opportunity to:

Work directly with courts to understand the biggest barriers faced by self-represented litigants.
Prototype, test, and refine user-centered solutions—including digital tools, visual aids, service redesigns, and process improvements.
Evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in real legal environments and make evidence-based recommendations for system-wide change.

From Ideas to Implementation

We built on a foundation of past research and prototyping efforts at the d.school, drawing from a bank of ideas developed in previous courses to jumpstart innovation and move quickly toward actionable solutions.

Students worked in multidisciplinary teams, applying design thinking, behavioral insights, and systems thinking to reimagine court processes and tools. Through fieldwork, iterative testing, and direct feedback from court users and staff, they developed prototypes that courts could immediately pilot in real-world settings.

Key Outcomes & Impact

By the end of the course, students delivered:

High-fidelity prototypes of service and product designs aimed at simplifying legal navigation.
Service design maps detailing how interventions fit into the broader legal ecosystem.
User insights and testing results to validate design effectiveness and guide future iterations.
Implementation roadmaps to help courts transition prototypes into fully deployed solutions.

An interdisciplinary course for complex system design

This class was designed not just for those with a background in law, but for anyone passionate about using design to drive social impact. We encouraged applications from students in design, engineering, policy, business, and beyond—those interested in tackling complex systems and building practical, human-centered solutions.

The legal system is just one example of a large, complex domain that needs better design. Courts, government agencies, financial services, and healthcare systems all struggle with outdated processes, fragmented user experiences, and policies that fail to scale efficiently. This course served as a blueprint for how design can streamline operations, improve organizational effectiveness, and drive innovation in high-stakes environments.

By combining systems thinking, behavioral insights, and rapid prototyping, we explored how design can:

Improve decision-making structures within organizations, reducing inefficiencies and friction.
Develop scalable digital tools that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows and regulatory frameworks.
Optimize policies and processes to make complex systems more navigable and user-friendly.
Enable new technologies to thrive by designing interfaces and frameworks that encourage adoption and trust.

This course was not just about fixing the legal system—it was about demonstrating how strategic design can transform any high-friction, specialized domain into a more functional, adaptive, and innovation-friendly space. The future of AI, automation, and digital transformation depends on designers who can bridge the gap between technology, policy, and human experience. This class gave students the tools to do exactly that.