DesignIssues: Volume 36, Number 3 Summer 2020 16 © 2020 Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Rapid Embrace of Legal Design and the Use of Co-Design to Avoid Enshrining Systemic Bias Dan Jackson, Miso Kim, Jules Rochielle Sievert Introduction After great delay, the U.S. legal profession and its many institutions are beginning to embrace digital technology and the value of its many applications in the delivery of both criminal and civil jus- tice. 1 Accordingly, and despite being deliberately designed to adapt slowly to change, law and legal institutions even find themselves the objects of interest and investment by the typically disruptive forces of Silicon Valley venture capital and creative technologists. 2 Most recently, state and local courts have adopted a welcoming stance to these interventions, signaling their intention to leverage digital technology not only to achieve organizational efficiency, but also to deliver their core product: justice—especially as it relates to the challenging task of assessing risk. 3 As the embrace of digital technology finally begins, nearly every significant component of our U.S. justice system (including law schools, law firms, courts, and other major civic institutions, like local government entities) also is enthusiastically engaging with design methods as a means of achieving both incremental and radical change. All of this shifting is remarkably new and is intrinsically linked together. Digital technology meaningfully applied within U.S. legal institutions goes no further back than 30 to 40 years. 4 Legal design, as a discipline, has been around less than a decade. 5 In both instances, our legal institutions—from law schools to courts to law firms—are beginning to quickly embrace novel solutions and methods, which is a significant shift from the relative conservatism and resistance of the recent past. This change is a very welcome one. Legal designers and technologists have every reason to be excited about this moment because our core institutions and organizations display a refreshing willingness to engage with the methods and tools about which they have been proselytizing for many years. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00601 1 See, e.g., COMPAS Core, “COMPAS CORE Risk/Needs Assessment and Case Planning,” Northpointe (website), http://www.northpointeinc.com/files/ downloads/Risk-Needs-Assessment.pdf (accessed April 16, 2019); Rebecca L. Sandefur, “Legal Tech for Non-Lawyers: Report of the Survey of U.S. Legal Technologies,” American Bar Foundation (website), http://www.americanbar- foundation.org (accessed February 19, 2020); and The National Center for State Courts Joint Technology Committee (website), https://www.ncsc.org/About- us/Committees/Joint-Technology-Com- mittee/Publications-and-Webinars.aspx (accessed July 1, 2019). 2 See, e.g., Paladin (website), “The Infrastructure for Pro Bono Champions,” https://www.joinpaladin.com/ (accessed April 15, 2019). See also Ari Kaplan, “Law Firms Are Investing in Innovation Through Venture Capital Services,” ABA Journal (website), http://www. abajournal.com/news/article/law-firms- investing-in-innovation-through-venture- capital (accessed February 19, 2020). 3 Chelsea Barabas et al., “Interventions over Predictions: Reframing the Ethical Debate for Actuarial Risk Assessment,” Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81 (2017): 1–15. http:// arxiv.org/abs/1712.08238. 4 To illustrate, Capstone Practice Systems, offers expertise in systematizing complex know-how into easy-to-use practice tools. The firm’s principals bring more than 35 years of collective experience in building digitalized systems. (See http://www.capstonepractice.com/ why-capstone.) Similarly, LegalZoom was founded in 2000 in an effort to empower Americans to take care of common and