What Lawyers Can Learn From Apple

A recent Techdirt (one of my favourite blogs) post referred to a NY Times article “noting a return to having even software and internet developers practice building physical things as well, in part just to get them to start thinking outside the (computer) box when thinking about how to design digital things. Think of it as cross-training for the digital developers mind.”

The article gives several examples of tech companies having workshops for its employess where they create things in the physical world.

“At Stanford, the rediscovery of human hands arose partly from the frustration of engineering, architecture and design professors who realized that their best students had never taken apart a bicycle or built a model airplane. For much the same reason, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a class, “How to Make (Almost) Anything,” which emphasizes learning to use physical tools effectively.”

How many of us have either used something or tried to repair something – and mused that if the person that designed it was forced to use or fix it, it would be designed differently? I’ve often thought things would be designed much differently if the designers were required to use and repair what they create.

There is a lesson in here for lawyers as well.

Its fairly easy to throw the usual precedent or a typical solution at a client. What makes a better lawyer, though, is to take the time to put yourself in your client’s position, and ask the right questions. Think about how that document or solution will be actually used, and how it will be received by the client’s customers or whomever the document or solution affects.

Perhaps Steve Jobs’ Apple philosophy works for lawyers as well. Build our products so they look good, are easy to use, include the features that clients want and need, and leave out a lot of the typical stuff that many think are needed but perhaps really are not.