The author, Aku Nikkola, is a Junior Legal Designer at Dot. He has been on board since the rebirth of Dot. in September 2020. During these seven months, Aku has been a part of full-scale legal design projects and the Legal Design School -project — the topic of this writing. He has also planned and carried out vaunted workshops for legal professionals and law students.
I am thrilled — and not only because the 1st of April means the opening of cycling season here in Helsinki, Finland. It also means that I can finally speak out loud about what we have been working on here at Dot. since I started here last September.
It is a passion project — an online-based course for anyone who is sick and tired of law being, oh well, law. For anyone who believes that there must be alternative (and more human-centric) ways to practice our craft. For anyone crazy enough to step out of the bubble and perceive legal work from a new perspective. The Legal Design School.
The school is not itself a secret. The website, www.legaldesignschool.com, was introduced to the public already a couple of years back. It was basically a prototype of an idea to provide a global platform for learning about legal design. However, due to some changes in the Dot. organization, the project had to be put on break for a moment. Fortunately, the hiatus was not too long as the Legal Design School was back on our drawing boards last fall, after Dot. was reborn as its own entity.
The first time I heard about the Legal Design School was during our first initial discussions with our founder and CEO, Antti Innanen, about a year ago. I was already back then excited by the idea that there would be an opportunity to study something completely different from law school’s everyday teaching. Something that would get me genuinely excited about law and the future of legal work. Little did I know that I would get a chance to be a part of the Legal Design School’s team a moment later.
One of the biggest motivators in designing the course has absolutely been the spontaneous feedback after our workshops. First, the feedback proves that legal design evokes vast interest in our participants. Secondly, it shows that legal education requires recreation — a breath of fresh air. I have seen that future legal professionals are open-minded and willing to make legal matters more understandable to everyone. With the Legal Design School, we want to make sure that this information is easily accessible to anyone.
‘’We want to revolutionize legal education. The traditional “legal” skillset is not enough anymore — modern lawyers need to learn design, tech, and business skills. At the same time, we want to introduce legal field to all designers interested in a challenge to reform one of the most old-fashioned industries.’’
— Antti Innanen, CEO of Dot.
Without further ado — here is a brief sneak peek at our course: It is a six-week online course based on the Legal Design Book written by Antti Innanen. The course brings the book’s lessons into a practical environment, where our participants will learn all the necessary about:
Legal Design Thinking — a human-centered approach to law that draws from the designer’s toolkit.
Innovation — how to unlock and drive innovation in their organization through Legal Design methods.
Leadership — how to lead legal design projects and turn ideas into value for their clients.
The participants will get access to comprehensive e-book and learning materials during the class and have challenging and interactive assignments throughout the course. The six-week course culminates in the last week when it is time for the Full-Stack Lawyer -test, where our participants get their hands on a real-life legal design case. When the test gets passed, our participants are awarded a certificate confirming their eligibility to carry out a legal design project. It also shows that they have challenged their knowledge about legal work and how it should be done. The certificate is proof that its owner genuinely wants to make law understandable and beautiful for all.
There is a new profession in the making — and I simply cannot wait to meet our future Full-Stack Lawyers. If you want to be informed of the launch among the first, please fill out your information at www.legaldesignschool.com (‘’JOIN NOW’’).
Together, we design the future of law.
