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18 - James v Birnmann

The Potential of Critical Design for Examining Legal Issues

from III - How Legal Design Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2024

By
Phoebe Walton
Edited by
Miso Kim ,
Dan Jackson  and
Jules Rochielle Sievert
Miso Kim
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
Dan Jackson
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
Jules Rochielle Sievert
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
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Summary

The growing field of legal design has largely adopted a design-thinking approach. Whilst this has improved efficiency and usability within legal systems, it has insufficiently addressed its systemic issues and in some cases has further entrenched such issues. Critical Design opposes the affirmative approach of design-thinking; it uses design as a method for finding and expanding problems rather than solving them quickly and discreetly. A Critical Design perspective applied to legal issues has the potential to more fundamentally interrogate systemic legal issues, which is necessary for creating a fairer legal system. The project James v Birnmann illustrates the capacity for Critical Design to contend with legal issues. Through utilising popular aesthetics and media, James v Birnmann engages the public with the negative impacts of the growing mediatisation of courtroom trials and the use of AI within legal processes. Challenging the public’s perception of law in this way is a useful step towards legal reform in-unto-itself, whilst this problem-finding approach could also work alongside and enrich the more solution-driven legal design as it is currently practised.

Keywords

critical designdesign thinkinglegal designcourtroom triallaw techmediapopular culturespeculative design
Type
Chapter
Information
Legal Design
Dignifying People in Legal Systems
 , pp. 278 - 305
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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