Challenge
My business unit needed to engage law students and Legal Tech leaders in law schools in an innovative, practice-focused way to expand our talent pipeline and demonstrate how our company solicits customer feedback.
Solution & My Role
I worked with a team of colleagues to develop a Product Design Challenge simulcast across five law school locations with more than 100 students and law school leaders participating. We designed the event to expose technology-minded law students to best practices in user centered design and elicit their best ideas to make one of our emerging products even better.
I was a leader on a cross-functional team that partnered with a leading Legal Tech community, Evolve Law, to identify schools and engage speakers from start-ups. I defined goals for my specific part of the business in the context of the larger enterprise goals and ensured that my customers’ needs were met. I amplified the excitement and engagement with online content and social media.
Results
Established fruitful relationships between Academic Account Managers and new stakeholders in law schools
Attracted at least two participants into our internship and student representative programs
Established group of advisers from among the 100 to provide feedback on future product development
Told the story with diverse voices in real time to the active Legal Tech Twittersphere:
More than 500 engagements on 65 posts showcasing the event and celebrating the winners
Posts came from more than 20 participants, partners and organizers.
The Event In Depth
We held the full-day event five cities, with each site hosting live speakers video simulcast across all sites
Legal Tech start ups showcased innovative ideas and products
UX expert Mona Patel explained the basics of user-centered design
We demonstrated an emerging product and asked students to “hack it” – to tell us how to make it better
Students worked in small groups to apply user empathy and human-centered design concepts to some element of the product we showed them
They pitched their problems and solutions to a panel of local judges, who selected a site winner
The five site winners pitched their ideas via video conference to the national audience, and judges at all five sites worked together to select the winning site
The site judges also selected a standout competitor from each school to join the product advisory session the following spring at Thomson Reuters
We networked with the competitors and their advisers after the competition and continued to nurture relationships long after
