The legal ecosystem has taken concepts from design thinking and created a legal subset that has encouraged us to design legal services and products with the client in the forefront of our minds.

Client experience takes that a step further. It’s more than just asking a client, typically at the end of their journey, if they were satisfied. It’s about understanding from the client perspective and building a multi-faceted, user-friendly path from first contact to last (and hopefully back again, many times) where every human contact, every digital asset, process and system, exceeds the client’s expectations. It also means being focussed on feedback – human and data – analysing it and making mid-course corrections that not only realise a high level of adaptability and flexibility, but also support the customisation of the client journey along the way.

As client expectations evolve and legal services and products do too, it’s also about continuous improvement, change and innovation in the design of a legal business. And, with that comes the deployment of new and different skills sets too. In part, client experience means reacting to demand but, to be able to differentiate in an increasingly competitive market, it’s even more about working collaboratively with clients to proactively anticipate and deliver when it is still a “nice to have” and not a necessity.

CLI recognised the importance of this topic a while back and appointed Carl White, Director and Chief Experience Officer, CXINLAW as a Distinguished Fellow. Carl’s work has focussed on creating practical resources for legal practitioners. You’ll find those here together with a bunch of others too.

This series will continue to evolve and, we welcome your thoughts and suggestions on topics you would find helpful - please contact us at CLI@collaw.edu.au.