Building confidence in AI for high-stakes legal work
- ClientInquisita
- IndustryLegal
- ServiceUI/UX Design & Research
- Setup1 designer + 1 researcher
- Timeline8 weeks
- 8
Weeks
- 12
Researh sessions
- 6
Design versions
The goal
The client approached us to turn their initial concept into a working prototype and validate it with legal professionals.
Their goal was to help US legal teams draft responses to discovery requests faster by analyzing uploaded documents and auto-generating tailored replies with objections, references, and citations.
The challenge
Discovery response drafting is a sensitive and high-stakes legal process. Many attorneys are wary of using AI, especially in client-facing work. Trust, transparency, and control were key challenges throughout the design.
Another challenge was balancing legal accuracy with usability: the platform had to remain flexible for professional review, while offering automation that truly saved time.
Also, several parts of the flow, such as linking documents, showing reasoning, and managing objections, required close collaboration with legal experts to get the tone and logic right.
The outcome
We delivered a clickable prototype, a design system, and a tested user experience for onboarding, drafting, document management, and exporting. We also provided branding, a logo, and early landing page content.
Our designs helped validate key assumptions with legal professionals, and informed the direction for future development and fundraising.
The user tests we ran confirmed a strong interest in the product, particularly its ability to save time while giving attorneys full control over edits and objections.
Project timeline
The process
Discovery & IA
We kicked off the project with a deep-dive discovery phase, where we:
- Researched the U.S. discovery process and key legal document types (Interrogatories, RFAs, RFPs)
- Mapped out how these are typically handled within firms
- Identified opportunities to streamline the flow using AI
We also worked closely with the stakeholders to define the information architecture:
- Dashboard with status indicators per case
- Case view structured around Discovery Sets and their individual items
- Multi-level document linking and response history
Basic information architecture we mapped out together
Branding & UI Kit
In addition to designing the user experience and flows, we also supported Inquisita with visual design and branding to ensure the product felt trustworthy and cohesive. This included everything from the logo and UI kit to social media assets and presentation materials:
- Designed a classic but modern brand identity and logo
- Built a flexible UI kit in Figma that supported scaling the prototype
- Created social media templates and product visuals for investor materials
Three initial logo versions created as starting points for exploration.
The final logo after a couple of iterations.
Additional contributions
Beyond the core drafting flow, we explored and shaped several other key areas of the product to ensure a cohesive and scalable experience:
- Admin and onboarding flow including firm and user setup
- Landing page structure and early copywriting
- Ideas for exports, version control, and linking documents to individual responses
Fresh ideas by ever changing characters
After 1 year of stable collaboration with the core team (3 designers + 1 researcher) we continued with 1 designer and 1 researcher on demand.
Our collective wins
- Our collaboration with the client company improved their UX maturity.
- We provided training and workshops to teach UX principles and methodologies.
- Receiving the Red Dot Award for the project in the "Interface & User Experience Design" category.
- User experience for the application, including its innovative design, interactive data visualizations, and seamless user journeys.
- Design System with foundational elements, components and guidelines to maintain a cohesive website.
- We conducted usability testing, user interviews, and iterative design to ensure the app met the expectations.
I am extremely happy we decided to work with UX studio. Their quality of work, professionalism, and user research provided for a really positive experience. If you're a startup looking to understand your market and users better, and want to translate those learning into intuitive UI workflows, UX studio is a fantastic choice.
