Law & Coder Episode 5 – Why Legal Tech Adoption Fails…and How Human-Centered Design Can Help (feat. Olivia Smith)

Join HIKE2 hosts Christina Natale, Director of Industry Solutions, and Morgan Llewellyn, Principal AI Practice Lead, with guest speaker, Olivia Smith, HIKE2 Director of Human-Centered Design & Strategy, for Episode 5 of Law & Coder.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• Human-Centered Design Drives Real Innovation: Effective innovation, especially in legal and regulated industries, starts with deeply understanding how people actually work. Human-centered design means engaging with users, identifying pain points, and co-creating solutions that align with real needs—not assumptions.
• Avoid the “One-Size-Fits-All” Trap: Tech purchases made without user input often lead to poor adoption or unused tools. To reduce risk and increase ROI, law firms must assess current workflows, involve a range of stakeholders early, and resist buying tools that promise to “solve everything.”
• Executive Alignment is Essential: A shared vision among leadership is critical to the success of any transformation effort. Individual conversations that explore what success looks like—for each executive—can uncover unseen priorities and ensure buy-in across departments.
• User Involvement Boosts Adoption: People are more likely to embrace change when they feel heard. Inviting users into the discovery and decision-making process builds trust, ensures relevant solutions, and increases the likelihood of meaningful, lasting adoption.

This episode is packed with actionable insights to help legal professionals navigate sustainable innovation and tech adoption with Human-Centered Design.

Tune in now!

Morgan Llewellyn: Hey! Welcome back to Law & Coder. I’m the co-host, Morgan Llewellyn, and with me as always, we’ve got Christina Natale. You know, Christina. It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve recorded our last session. We had a great one with Emily rushing where we were really talking about. You know, data transformation. We’ve got an exciting one coming up next with Rachel Shield Williams, where we’re going to be talking about the evolving role of Crm, but today we’ve got an amazing guest. We’ve got Liv Smith with us, and we’re going to be talking about, you know, human centered design. I mean, Christina, why are you excited for today? What should folks be expecting about today’s Podcast?

Christina Natale: I’m really excited about today, like you said, I feel like coming from my legal background and probably from your innovation background as well. I don’t think and like correct me if I’m wrong, as always, I don’t think I had ever really even heard of human centered design before I came to hike and not just because of working at hike but also working with our clients. I don’t think that I had even heard of it. And yet, when I think about the work that we do, and you know the ways that we’ve been able to kind of bridge some of the divides between law

and technology and people who are non technical. It’s because even if you don’t know that you’re doing, it’s because of human centered design, which I think is so cool.

Morgan Llewellyn: I can’t argue with you there. I definitely think it is something, especially as we go more into automation right? And we think more about bots. We’ve really, you know, kind of understood the need to keep the human in the loop, as it were, and that need for human centered design. I guess all design used to be human centered design. But now, actually, we have to be a little bit more purposeful in making human centered. So yeah, no, I think you’re spot on.

Christina Natale: I love that we’re so excited about our guest today. Our colleague and frequent collaborator, Liv Smith. Liv, are you here with us? Hi!

Olivia Smith: We are so excited to be here.

Christina Natale: Yeah, we’re so excited to have you for our listeners. Liv is the director of Human Centered design here at Hike2. She empowers organizations to transform technology with people at the center, which is going to be what we’re talking about today. She’s partnered with executive teams across all sectors that we work with here at hike including specifically legal but also other highly regulated industries, financial services, Saas, and government and created designed human-centered strategies that facilitate change and drive digital innovation. Hi, Liv.

Olivia Smith: Hi, guys, thank you for having me. And thank you for that great intro.

Christina Natale: Absolutely. We’re so excited. Why don’t you tell before we dive into our topic human centered design? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your journey here, and how you found yourself in this role with, you know, human centered design and the title. How did you even find out that that was a thing.

Olivia Smith: Yeah, absolutely so, even, Christina, you saying that whenever you kind of entered into this space you’d never even heard of human centered design. And I think that’s similar to AI human centered design as that title is fairly new. You know, when I was in school we weren’t having human centered conversations. We were just having conversations around design. And I joined a human centered design practice and really learned about what it is that we’re doing. What does HCD mean? And we’ve seen it. This practice, applied to so many different industries like you said, but really at its core, to me. Human centered design is just understanding the users. It’s going in asking somebody how they do their process and watching how they do their process. We often find that the way somebody explains it versus the way that they actually do it are very, very different. We dig deep into what is a pain point, you know where in their work or what they’re doing, is causing hurdles or causing extra time in their day to day process. and we look for opportunities. So sometimes there are huge champions and innovators, and those who are sitting in their chairs always thinking about the next thing, or how to make their process. You know, more streamlined or faster, really staying innovative at its core. And we go and we lean on those people. We talk to them. We take the best practices that we know about, and we apply it all together to put together these end solutions for them. That will, you know, really tie back to the business values and the business priorities.

Christina Natale: Do you feel like you said And now I’m sitting here like I think about. I went from working fully in an office in Houston, Texas, you know, practicing law to moving to Washington, DC. And, you know, sat on my couch every day and sat on conference calls. I feel like that. Must have been such an interesting time to be diving into this world of human centered design. Right? I mean, everybody had their work kind of workflow disrupted whether they knew it or not.

Olivia Smith: Right? Right? I’m so grateful that I got that Pre Covid background of what is human centered design. And how do we do this in person? I mean, it’s most successful when we’re sitting in the room or watching you work or get to see, you know, body language, facial expressions. When you’re talking about your work, but then, you know, we flipped it on its head, and in we went totally virtual. So we had to relearn what does human centered design mean behind a screen? How are we doing all of those same things we were able to in person, you know, we used to stand behind somebody sitting at their desk and literally just watch them do their work. We would look at the post-its on their desk, we would look at the notes, the pens, the things that they were doing. And now we’ve had to learn and ask those questions verbally, you know. Okay, tell me about your desk? Are you using a notes app on your laptop? Are we using excel spreadsheets? Those types of things that people don’t realize are actually huge parts of their processes. Whenever we go in to talk to them about a specific system, they don’t even think about what they’re doing outside of their system. So yeah, relearning how to control those conversations and pull out those details has been super interesting. And I feel like at this point, we’ve really gotten it down to figure out how to do it.

Christina Natale: That’s a really great kind of accent. As always. We kind of just have conversations here, but we sort of move into this flow that makes sense, and where we usually start is like, what was it like before this like? Where was was it even a consideration? Were we even thinking about? What are people doing? What is their current way of working before we throw this new technology at them? Could you speak a little bit about kind of what it was like before this.

Olivia Smith: Yeah, definitely, I think there was this boom of at the beginning. Everyone was making very, very customized tools for their their skill sets. And what specifically they were doing. And then we saw the boom of off the shelf products, and these were very niche one off kind of if you have this problem by this product. And people were going crazy. The It departments were throwing their budgets at this because they would hear about one problem and then solution for it and buy that tool. We’re now on the other end of that problem, where it’s people have too many tools that are, you know, starting to overlap. I think, especially with Cloud, there’s product updates. And there’s software updates where new capabilities are happening within these tools. And there’s overlap where you have tools that can all do the same thing, and nobody knows, because there’s only one guy working in the back of the office who is using that tool. So it’s causing a lot of tech debt. And we’re, you know, really, as we’re moving into the present, trying to undo a lot of the things that were done in that, you know. Kind of wallet happy, throwing their money at different tools.

Morgan Llewellyn: So. Do you see? I think that’s really interesting. Do you see more human centered design? I don’t know if you want to call it opportunities, or just need kind of at that initial selection process? Or is it really well? No, most firms are now in this position, where they’ve got too much. And it’s how do they kind of unravel that mess that they have like? Where do you see? You know, more need for human centered design. Do you get ahead of it? Or do you just address what you have currently.

Olivia Smith: I think you need to address the problem, but also put governance in place for how we’re going to move forward. It’s almost like, figure out the governance, address the problem, see where we can kind of delete some of these tools. Stop paying for them, you know. Transfer over to the new best in class solution that we’re going to all be using, and then really apply that governance. So there’s a way to vet all of these tools and go in once you understand what it is that your people need, then it’s easier to find that right tool. But if you’re only talking to a small set of people who have a very similar problem. Then, yeah, there is going to be a tool out there, usually off the shelf that will help address that one specific need. But if you were to talk to those people a little bit deeper, you would understand that they have more problems. And maybe it’s the other tool that’s gonna solve more of their problems. So it really is kind of more bang for your buck.

Christina Natale: It sounds like and live. I know that you’re a friend of and and fan of the podcast as you know, we sometimes also, wherever it strikes us. We try to point out our risk to avoid risk, to consider, risk to embrace. And it feels like, maybe you’re talking about our risk to avoid today. Is there something that you feel like as the purchaser, the buyer, the decision maker? What would you say is the biggest kind of risk to avoid in making that purchasing decision.

Olivia Smith: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think the risk to avoid is trying to buy a product that is one size fits all. So going out talking to everyone, grabbing pain points here and there and being like, Okay, I think this will solve for most of the people. Or we can try to. You know, rework workflows into this one tool

Olivia Smith: when really, you know, we have to assess, is that the best solution, especially whenever we’re looking at larger firms who have multiple practice groups with multiple problems or multiple processes that really don’t overlap. We can’t be buying tools that will work for everyone, because it’s just. It’s not natural. And it’s not the way that the workflows are going right now.

Christina Natale: Morgan. I feel like we’ve all of us, and probably on projects we’ve worked on together. But I feel like we can all think of examples where we’ve come in to work with a client that’s already selected and built and implemented a technology. And literally, on the st day of live training of their team. They’re explaining to them. This is why we selected this tool for you, and it’s gonna change your life and make everything better, and it’s like they have no idea. Nobody’s even told them before, that is, you know, something was selected like, can you think of any examples of that, Morgan, or am I.

Morgan Llewellyn: I would go one step further, because I think we see this in legal, maybe more so than in any other industry that I’ve ever seen before is the purchasing of tools that are never even implemented, never even make it to pilot phase. And you know, I think really, what that speaks to is what lives talking about is we’re not taking into consideration. You know, we, you know, broader legal. We’re not always taking into consideration those greater user needs and that’s kind of why it’s dying on the vine where we rush out, we hear a problem. We rush out. We buy a tool. But we haven’t done the due diligence before that purchase to make sure that that we’ve we’ve done that because I I agree. But I think it’s almost worse than what you’re saying of. There’s a lot of tools I’ve heard get purchased that never even make it to pilot or st implementation.

Christina Natale: No, that’s a really good point. I, you know, thinking about kind of where it’s going, right? Which is, gonna be our next question preview for for live so she can get ready. Right is where? Where do we see this going, and where can it be successful? And you know, I know we talked a bit with Emily last time on the pod about, you know. People and culture coming first, st stepping back and assessing like, what are we about here? What are you know? What are we teaching our people that we’re about our clients that we’re about? And how do we get there? It sounds like a that. Taking that step back before you’re even selecting thinking about both. Maybe it’s like a fork in the road, but both are important. You’ve got this path, that selection criteria, what do we actually need? And another path? That’s I feel like where I’m going and maybe live. You can tell me if I’m wrong on this. But you touched on a bit. Adoption, utilization, return on investment. Is it even going to be worth it? What? Morgan was kind of saying this like, if we buy this, are we even going to. you know, deploy it to our users? And even if we do, are they actually gonna use it.

Olivia Smith: Right, right.

Morgan Llewellyn: I think the I think I guess you know kind of talking to one of my favorite talking points here is, if we’re not changing workflows. And we’re doing innovation. Then what are we doing if workflows aren’t being discussed prior to tool selection. what’s the point? If we’re just gonna be doing the same thing with a slightly different technology. You gotta have a really good cost reason to be using that new technology if you’re not changing workflow. So unless it’s like a screaming by of, I’m gonna cut cost. You know, if you’re doing the same thing with what are you doing.

Olivia Smith: Right. And Christina. Something that you said is in your example would be, you know it coming and saying, Hey, we! We selected this tool for you. Here’s why we selected it. And I think the biggest miss in that situation is the opportunity to drive user adoption by involving the users in the tool selection process. So you know, most of the time everyone is ready to tell you why things aren’t working. The pain points are so obvious to these users who have been using their tools day in and day out, or the process, day in and day out. So it’s being there to listen to those pain points and feeling heard. This goes beyond just the legal industry. I think it’s all humans really is. If you feel that you’ve been heard. If you have raised your opinion and actually see that change happening in this case, it’s Hey, this isn’t working for me. Let’s try to work together to find a solution. If you feel like that solution is going to be reflective on the the needs that you had, then Your adoption is going to go up. These users are excited to see, you know where this new process will take them, because they had a stake in in choosing the next tool.

Christina Natale: I like that a lot. And I actually am going to turn it around. I think it’s like almost the opposite issue as well, which is like, Okay, yes, we should be asking like, will this solve like for something that you need that’s not working? Are we also thinking about like, do they have something that’s working, and I don’t mean like I’ve got my crazy filing cabinet, my whiteboard, my stickies, those are the things that like I think Morgan is talking about like workflow redesign? Are we actually making processes more efficient? Whatever? But maybe I have a solution that not only I’ve been using for a long time, but is like industry standard, or is like, I’m doing Federal litigation of, you know, patent claims. And like, it’s literally the only solution that has a direct Api connection. or what have you to the source that you know I need? I literally cannot use anything else. So now, like, I can’t use this thing you’ve given me because it doesn’t do what I need it to do.

Olivia Smith: Great. it defies any assumption. So a lot of the times when consultants are brought in, it’s under the assumption that something is happening. So there have been, you know, up times when we go in and we’re talking to a firm that has different practice groups. And we do a survey of how things are going across those different practice groups and something like litigation. They’re having so many problems with their process. You know, there’s a lot of like repetitive pieces with pain points that are felt by all of the different members of that team. And then we’ll go and talk to. You know the sustainability group, and they again like very, very regulated. They’re doing the, you know, their tools are working for them. and that’s where we can come back and do more of like a retro to the executive teams that brought us in and say, Hey, whenever we go to solution? Now we’re going to head into litigation. And here’s all the reasons why we’re going to wait on the sustainability group. And here’s the reasons why. And we have all of this data to back us up through these different conversations. But yeah, like you said, it’s talking to these people hearing what they’re saying. And then sometimes it’s not reacting at all. It’s saying, All right, you’re you guys are good to go. We’ll come back to you or touch on the small pain points that we heard about. But it’s not your process. That’s the problem right now.

Christina Natale: Would you? I think that this is our risk to consider for today is bringing together kind of. And I love this because this is what we all of us do on a regular basis on all of our client projects. But marrying kind of that human centered design and innovation. It’s workflow redesign at its core. It’s like, are we thinking about current ways of working? And are we thinking, are we asking people about their needs? I feel like this is kind of. We have like, Morgan said. If we’re not doing this, then are we even innovating? Are we even doing anything.

Olivia Smith: Great. Yeah. And I think even just to back up when we’re talking about workflow redesign just in the simplest of terms. It’s going in and understanding. What are people doing today asking them to go through their process and then working with them to, you know, solution for them. What’s going to be the most streamlined or aligned with their priorities, like we said, and in doing that we don’t want to go too too deep on these workflows at some point like, you know, if you’re going to go in and survey all of them, you might go too deep and get too nitty, gritty whenever you really need to kind of stay at the foot view, especially at the beginning of this discovery. to try to understand who are we actually solving, for if we’re brought in to, you know, talk to different teams, or go in and talk to the attorneys and the paralegals, and the it team. You know, there’s a there’s so many workflows that we’re talking about at that point. So you really do have to do this scan upfront and figure out who are we solving for? Because we can’t solve for every single person at this time.

Christina Natale: I think that’s a really good call out, really good point. And I’m also thinking about, you know, if I’m an attorney like a partner at a firm, and I’m having, you know, an hour even of my billable time, taken away to engage in this discovery. And I’m being told, and I feel I see you nodding. And again I feel like we all have examples that we’ve seen of this. And I’m being told that you know we’re going to go through this transformation. And hike, too, is going to come in and interview you and do these workshops and learn your every single process that you do all day every day, and then nothing comes of it, or like, there’s this roadmap that’s like great. We’ll get to you in months, you know, it’s like. why, like now a I feel like you wasted my time. I’m frustrated. I don’t understand why we did this, and by the time that you get to me like it may not even be relevant anymore.

Olivia Smith: Right? Yeah, things are changing very, very quickly. And that, I think, comes with upfront work. And really having stakeholders who are bought into what we’re doing and what we’re trying to transform. So the more that the the stakeholders understand the business and understand what they are really trying to accomplish the more successful that this projects these projects will be. We try to come in early and just do executive alignment, so really align it in the business, and also the legal side of the firms, and make sure they know they’re all on the same page of why we’re here.

Christina Natale: Morgan.

Morgan Llewellyn: Would you say so? On that, like strong executive alignment? Would you say a strong vision is important and necessary? Or is that something that you know kind of through the process. You help shape.

Olivia Smith: Both. I at the beginning. You know, we need to define this early and a lot of the times the vision is defined before we come in. We want to make sure that as we talk to all of the executive stakeholders, they are all aligned because we can’t just have one person calling the shot, especially because there’s so many different units within the firm between it and business and legal. So yeah, addressing them early, it is nice, though, as the consultants to come in with some sort of an idea of what the vision is. But you know we’re seeing things like reduce manual errors, or reduce risk, or you know, up the Roi everything like that. And if they aren’t fully aligned an example as we came in, thought we would be really streamlining work streams. We went in and talked to all of the executive stakeholders, and the number. One thing that we kept hearing was that they wanted to ensure that the culture of the firm stayed at the heart of the firm, and I don’t think any of the executives saw that coming, but we had to do this kind of human centered design exercise to get that out of them, and it really shaped the way that we selected tools and really future proofed everything for them.

Christina Natale: I was literally. And, Morgan you popped in with, as always, like the perfect kind of follow up question. And and I was going to ask you, Morgan. I think about our different roles and the way that each of us come into different. You know engagements for you. I think it’s really interesting, because most of the time, and of course you come in into our projects on. You know we do business of law. We do practice of law. I think about the most of the engagements and people that you’re talking to at conferences and bringing in, you know, having these conversations with are like it. Or you know, data operational users that are looking for right? The purchasers, people looking for solutions. And I, I just think about how we come in, you know from that. And do those people, whether they’re looking for a solution for the practice of law or business of law? Are they always aware of the people that might need to be involved in order to really make it successful and think through the human needs.

Morgan Llewellyn: Yeah, it’s a it’s a good question. I think there’s some nuance here. And I I get a I get a little bit of grace in these conversations, because when I’m when I’m chatting with, you know, even, you know. Think of it. And data folks. You know, they’re they’re not necessarily saying, I want to go buy a tool right? What they’re really looking is for guidance and strategy in this quickly ever changing AI space. And so I think there is a a little bit of a a difference in a break from the traditional where they’re they’re trying to understand. How do I approach AI. And what does that mean for the business? And so what it means for the business, what it means for the firm they’re they’ve already thought about. Who do I need to include from the practice of law side, from the operation side? And so it it is a little bit different than you know. Very, very seldom. Is it a hey? I want to talk database right? And we just wanna you know, evaluate different databases. It’s more. What’s happening with AI. How does it apply to the firm? And it is already talking with operations. It is already talking with practice of law. They all understand something needs to change. They all understand. Technology has a role in it, and they’re really looking for guidance. And so you know, the human centered design is so spot on. Because, you know, I think we’re lucky when it comes to AI that they they understand workflows are going to change right? They’re not looking to do the same with different tech.

Christina Natale: I love that, and I feel like you kind of brought us full circle before we wrap up here back to that text selection verses and the verses right, which we’ve talked about with again, with a lot of our guests, and and also here today. But the verses is thinking through what is the actual challenge? What is the business challenge we’re trying to solve for before we jump straight into all right, this is what we need to buy, and I think that’s spot on, and and I know I’ve seen but like you said even those it and business stakeholders are thinking about. Well, they’ve already done that. What are the real challenges we’re we’re looking to solve here. Would you? I think that’s our as we’re about to wrap up? Maybe our risk to embrace which is the alignment of those stakeholders really understanding the right people early on, and how it’s going to impact. Kind of, you know the success of the project. Whether you have that, you said, starting with executive alignment, I can’t even remember anymore if it was you, or live because you both are saying all of the all of the right things, checking off my list here. It was lit. It was always lit highly. I really can’t even remember.

Morgan Llewellyn: I guess a a question for you live is, you know, just kind of looking, you know. If if risk to embrace is executive in line alignment. You know any suggestions, or you know things that you think are, you know. better predictors of success and getting that alignment like what’s work that, you know, a listener might be able to do to help promote executive alignment, or what’s something? Maybe they shouldn’t do.

Olivia Smith: Yeah, yeah, we go in and we ask that question, what does success look like if we have a week’s timeline, what? What will be the most beneficial thing for you at the end of these weeks? And you would be surprised at the answers that we get, because people already know, I mean at this point they’ve already brought in consultants. They have an idea of where they want to head. But whenever you get down onto that individual level. And I think that’s why these executive interviews, one on one is so important is you don’t get different opinions coming at you and people changing their opinions based on what others say, so point blank, asking those questions, what does success look like? We always say, if you could wave a magic wand, you know. How would you fix everything right now? And really just making sure all the different sides of the business are being heard just because the success looks so different, depending on who you are and where you sit.

Morgan Llewellyn: I really like that? what I like about it is it’s not asking what success looks like in a board meeting, right? It’s individually. What does success look like for this? You know, project initiative for you? And then being able to get alignment at that individual level, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Christina Natale: I love that. And I was gonna say, as we kind of do our recap and actionable advice as always like, that’s nail on the head, I’m thinking, live of a recent like. It wasn’t even a full engagement, a client that we’re already working with asked us to come in and just do some like light human centered discovery, with a different with actual users, with attorneys on like a budgeting, you know, as they select a budgeting pro prod solution. And when Liv asked that question to the actual attorneys like, If you had a magic wand, what would you do like? You would not believe, like the things that they’re like. Oh, my God! Nobody’s ever asked me, you know, whatever. And afterwards the stakeholders were like, Oh, my God! Like we heard so many things that we did not expect to hear, because we’ve just didn’t think like they don’t. You know. They don’t think about these things.

Olivia Smith: Right? Right? I mean, everyone has an opinion. We’re all human. So giving someone the opportunity to answer that question in a very one, on one personal conversation. It’s all about the way that you approach it. Everyone is going to have an answer to those questions. So I think, especially asking, what does success look like at the end of these weeks, or weeks, or whatever, however long this project is. But then you know, what success look like for your firm? It’s a very different question. And it really does help to drive where we’re going to end up at the end of the project.

Christina Natale: Liv. It has been an absolute pleasure, as always. I feel like we’ve all been traveling, working on projects we get. So you know, in the weeds of things that we don’t always get to come together and have these conversations, which is why Morgan and I started this podcast but we love having you. It has been seriously such great advice for our listeners. I’m going to pass to Morgan to wrap us up by teasing our next episode and Guest.

Morgan Llewellyn: Yeah, thank you again. Live. It was lovely talking to you. So our next guest, we’re gonna have Rachel Shield Williams, and we are going to be talking about Crm, and just the evolving need that is Crm within law firms. What? What is the need? And how is that evolving over time? I think it’s gonna be a fascinating conversation. As we all know, there’s a lot of interesting things going on in the Crm space and legal right now. And so yeah, I can’t wait to talk to Rachel Shield Williams on our next call.

Christina Natale: Yeah, and I think a perfect segue into, you know, text selection, and how we, you know, make those decisions, and whether and how we’re considering the human aspect. So thank you so much. Liv, we will definitely be having you back. And we’re really excited for our listeners to get to hear this one with that. Thank everybody who’s given time out of their day to listen in to law and Coder, especially Morgan’s mom.

Morgan Llewellyn: Love you, mom.

Olivia Smith: Yeah, thanks to my mom. Well, thank you for having me. This has been so great, and I would love to come back.

Christina Natale: Absolutely see you all soon.

Olivia Smith: Thank you.

Christina Natale: Bye.