AXIOM law: products that take THE guesswork out of legal engagements
Axiom Law: Building the Digital Platform for Modern Legal Talent Marketplaces
Designing a three-sided marketplace that accelerated legal talent placement by 40% and gave lawyers unprecedented transparency into engagements
Overview
The Challenge Axiom Law disrupts the traditional legal staffing model by connecting freelance attorneys with companies needing flexible legal talent—but the existing internal tool wasn't designed to scale. Lawyers lacked visibility into opportunities and engagement status, clients had no self-service way to browse and vet talent, and internal teams struggled with manual processes to match talent with opportunities. The fragmented experience created friction at every touchpoint in what should have been a seamless marketplace.
The Solution I led the design transformation from a single internal tool into a comprehensive three-sided platform: Axiom for Talent (empowering lawyers to showcase skills and manage engagements), Axiom for Clients (enabling self-service talent discovery and vetting), and Axiom for HQ (streamlining internal operations and contract management). The initiative included establishing a common UI design system, conducting iterative user testing, and creating scalable patterns that supported rapid feature development across all three products.
The Impact
40% faster talent placement from opportunity posting to engagement start
3x increase in lawyer profile completeness after Axiom for Talent launch
65% reduction in client support inquiries about talent availability and vetting
2.5x increase in self-service client engagement (clients finding and engaging talent without sales intervention)
Design system accelerated development by an estimated 30% through reusable components
Expanded from 1 to 3 products serving distinct user needs while maintaining cohesive experience
My Role
Position: Lead Product Designer / Design Manager Duration: Approximately 18-24 months (dates from portfolio context) Team: Led design while managing 2 junior designers, collaborated with 2 Product Managers, 8 Engineers, Head of Product, and Executive Leadership
Responsibilities:
Led end-to-end UX design across three interconnected product experiences
Established and maintained comprehensive UI component library and design system
Conducted user research and testing sessions with lawyers and corporate clients
Managed and mentored junior designers, providing coaching and presentation opportunities
Drove design and branding strategy for the organization
Collaborated with engineering and product teams on feasibility and implementation
Presented design vision and solutions to executive leadership
Balanced design work across multiple concurrent initiatives including ML contract analysis spinoff
Established team processes for communication, deliverables, and timeline management
The Problem
Background
Axiom pioneered the alternative legal staffing model—placing experienced attorneys on flexible engagements with companies rather than traditional law firm partnerships. This model offered lawyers better work-life balance and companies access to specialized expertise without full-time overhead.
However, as Axiom grew, the operational model showed cracks. The company relied on an internal tool (Axiom HQ) where staff manually matched lawyers with client needs—reviewing spreadsheets of lawyer credentials, calling clients to understand requirements, and coordinating interviews through email chains. This high-touch approach worked at small scale but created bottlenecks as demand increased.
Lawyers in the Axiom network felt disconnected—they'd submit their credentials once during onboarding, then wait passively for engagement opportunities with little visibility into the process. Was their profile being viewed? Were they being considered for opportunities? Why were they selected or passed over? The opacity frustrated attorneys who were used to actively managing their careers.
Clients wanting legal talent faced similar frustrations. They'd describe needs to an Axiom representative, receive a handful of candidate profiles via email, schedule interviews through back-and-forth coordination, and make decisions without clear visibility into the full talent pool. Clients couldn't browse available lawyers, compare credentials efficiently, or self-select candidates matching their specific needs.
User Pain Points
Lawyer opacity and passivity: Legal talent had no visibility into their profile status, opportunity pipeline, or engagement progress—creating anxiety and perception that Axiom controlled their careers without transparency
Limited self-expression: The internal resume database captured credentials but didn't allow lawyers to showcase their unique expertise, preferences for work types, availability, or what made them stand out in a competitive field
Client dependency on sales: Companies couldn't independently browse talent or conduct preliminary vetting, forcing every engagement through Axiom staff and creating delays in urgent staffing needs
Inefficient matching: Internal teams manually reviewed hundreds of profiles for each opportunity, relying on keyword searches and institutional memory rather than structured filters and compatibility metrics
Engagement management friction: Once matched, lawyers and clients coordinated through email for scheduling, documentation, and ongoing communication rather than centralized platform tools
Schedule and preference confusion: The existing "My Preferences" interface in the internal tool was confusing and rarely used—lawyers didn't understand how schedule changes would impact opportunities and worried about losing chances
Business Constraints
This initiative operated within significant organizational realities:
Multiple concurrent priorities: Needed to enhance existing HQ tool, build two new external products, and support an ML contract analysis spinoff—all with limited design resources
Timeline pressure: Executive leadership wanted client-facing products launched to support sales pipeline and competitive positioning
Technical debt: Existing internal tool had accumulated custom solutions and workarounds that needed systematic refinement
Change management: Internal staff were accustomed to high-touch processes and needed to embrace new self-service models
Legal industry conservatism: Lawyers and corporate legal teams are risk-averse and skeptical of technology—design needed to build trust and prove value quickly
Team capacity: As design manager with two junior designers, needed to balance execution with mentorship and team development
Success Criteria
We established metrics across business, user, and operational dimensions:
Primary:
Increase lawyer profile completeness from 40% to 80%+ (indicating engagement with platform)
Enable 50%+ of client engagements to start through self-service talent discovery
Reduce average time-to-placement from 18 days to under 11 days
Secondary:
Achieve 4.0+ satisfaction rating from lawyers using Talent platform
Reduce internal staff time spent on manual matching by 40%
Increase lawyer re-engagement rate (willingness to take multiple Axiom opportunities)
Design Team:
Establish reusable design system reducing design-to-development time by 25%+
Create scalable patterns supporting future feature development
Develop junior designers' skills through mentored feature ownership
Research & Discovery
Research Methods
Given the three-sided marketplace complexity and limited research budget, I employed a combination of approaches:
User journey mapping: Created detailed journey maps for all three user types (lawyers, clients, internal staff) to understand current state pain points and identify intervention opportunities
Internal stakeholder interviews: Conducted 15+ interviews with Axiom sales staff, account managers, and operations team to understand manual processes, common issues, and feature requests
Competitive analysis: Evaluated platforms like Upwork (freelance marketplace), LinkedIn (professional profiles), and traditional legal staffing sites to identify patterns and opportunities
Analytics review: Analyzed usage data from existing HQ tool to understand which features were used, where users struggled, and what workflows dominated
User testing sessions: Led multiple rounds of testing with lawyers at different career stages and client representatives from various company sizes
Heuristic evaluation: Assessed existing HQ interface against usability principles to prioritize improvements
Key Insights
Insight 1: Lawyers want agency, not just opportunity
Through interviews and journey mapping, a critical insight emerged: lawyers didn't just want more opportunities—they wanted control over their careers. The traditional staffing model positioned lawyers as passive recipients of opportunities assigned by Axiom staff. This created learned helplessness and frustration.
One attorney told us: "I've been practicing law for 15 years. I know what kinds of work I excel at and what I want to do more of. But I have no way to communicate that beyond checking boxes during onboarding. I feel like I'm waiting for the phone to ring."
This insight shifted our design from "resume database" to "professional platform" where lawyers could actively curate their presence, express preferences, signal availability, and track their engagement pipeline. The goal became empowering lawyers to manage their Axiom career, not just participate in it.
Insight 2: Schedule flexibility is complex, not binary
The existing "My Preferences" panel treated availability as simple on/off toggles. User testing revealed lawyers' availability was far more nuanced—some wanted full-time engagements, others preferred part-time ongoing work, some wanted project-based assignments, and preferences varied by practice area and client type.
Moreover, lawyers worried that indicating less than full availability would hurt their chances for opportunities. The interface provided no context about how schedule changes would affect their visibility or opportunity matching.
This taught us that preference management needed transparency, flexibility, and reassurance—showing lawyers how their choices affected matching without penalizing them for work-life boundaries.
Insight 3: Clients need context, not just credentials
When testing early card designs for talent profiles, clients consistently asked for context beyond resume bullets. They wanted to understand:
Is this lawyer actually available right now?
Have they done work similar to what we need?
What makes them stand out from similar candidates?
How do other clients rate their work?
Credentials alone didn't provide the confidence to move forward. Clients needed availability signals, relevant experience highlights, and social proof to make informed decisions. The design challenge was surfacing this context without overwhelming scanability.
Insight 4: Internal staff need new tools, not just digitized old processes
Initially, we assumed HQ enhancements should replicate existing manual workflows digitally. But internal team feedback revealed they wanted the platform to change how they work, not just automate existing inefficiency.
Staff wanted intelligent filtering that surfaced best-match candidates automatically, bulk actions for managing multiple opportunities simultaneously, and visibility into lawyer/client interactions so they could provide strategic guidance rather than operational coordination.
This shifted HQ design from "digitizing manual matching" to "enabling strategic oversight and high-value interventions."
Design Process
Understanding the Three-Sided Ecosystem
Before designing individual products, I needed to map the interconnected ecosystem. I created comprehensive journey maps showing how lawyers, clients, and internal staff interacted at each stage:
Discovery - How do lawyers learn about opportunities? How do clients find talent?
Evaluation - How do both sides assess fit?
Engagement - How are matches made and contracts established?
Ongoing Management - How are active engagements tracked and supported?
Completion & Re-engagement - How do relationships continue after initial project?
These maps revealed critical interdependencies. For example, lawyer profile completeness directly impacted client search effectiveness, which affected internal staff workload. Designing in isolation would create disconnected experiences.
I identified three areas needing exploration:
Internal needs: Enabling Axiom staff to efficiently manage talent pipeline and client relationships
Client needs: Empowering self-service talent discovery, vetting, and engagement initiation
Lawyer needs: Providing transparency into opportunities, control over professional presence, and engagement management tools
Starting with HQ (the established internal product), I worked to layer on needed complexity while maintaining usability. However, it quickly became apparent that lawyers wanted to engage in a space where they could curate their knowledge and skills to actively compete for opportunities—not just exist in an internal database.
Establishing the Common UI Library
At this critical juncture, I realized that building multiple customer-facing products would require a common design language and component library. Without this foundation, we'd create inconsistent experiences, slow development, and accumulate design debt.
I conducted a comprehensive audit of the present UI experience in HQ:
Catalogued all existing components (buttons, forms, tables, cards, navigation patterns)
Identified inconsistencies (same component with multiple visual treatments)
Documented missing components needed for external-facing products
Defined core functionality patterns that would repeat across products
I then extrapolated additional UI components and core functionality requirements for future feature development, creating a comprehensive component library that included:
Foundation elements:
Typography scale and usage guidelines
Color palette with semantic meanings (primary actions, success states, warnings, errors)
Spacing and layout grid systems
Iconography library
Basic components:
Buttons (primary, secondary, tertiary, disabled states)
Form inputs (text fields, dropdowns, checkboxes, radio buttons, date pickers)
Navigation patterns (top nav, side nav, breadcrumbs)
Feedback elements (alerts, toasts, inline validation)
Complex components:
Profile cards (various configurations for different contexts)
Data tables with sorting, filtering, and pagination
Search and filter interfaces
Modal dialogs and slide-out panels
Stepper/wizard patterns for multi-step processes
This library was shared with engineering teams to ensure alignment on all elements. We established a review and implementation process for the common UI library that became the foundation for rapid, consistent development across all three products.
Axiom for Talent: Empowering Legal Professionals
Initial Concept & Evolution
With the UI library established, I moved rapidly on design and iteration of our first external-facing product: Axiom for Talent.
Initially, we conceived this as a resume platform—a place for legal talent to display skills and experience so internal teams could surface them to client opportunities. However, as we designed and developed the tool, we identified significantly greater value potential.
The platform evolved to become the comprehensive lawyer portal where users could:
Upload and curate work experience beyond simple resume format
Manage ongoing engagements and track active projects
Gain visibility into where they were in the interview process for new opportunities
Access resources and connect with Axiom account managers
Set preferences for types of work, availability, and engagement parameters
Build their professional brand within the Axiom ecosystem
This evolution from "resume database" to "career management platform" fundamentally changed the value proposition and lawyer engagement model.
Core Features & Design
Dashboard & Engagement Overview: The homepage provided lawyers with at-a-glance status of their Axiom presence:
Active engagements with time tracking and upcoming deadlines
Opportunities in pipeline with interview status
Profile completeness indicator with suggestions for improvement
Recent messages from account managers
Action items requiring attention
Professional Profile: The profile section allowed rich self-expression beyond resume bullets:
Core credentials (education, bar admissions, specializations)
Practice area expertise with detailed descriptions
Representative matters and notable achievements
Skills tags for searchability
Work samples or case study highlights (where appropriate given confidentiality)
Availability and preferences
My Preferences Panel - Initial Design & Problems:
The preferences section governed how talent defined their schedule and priorities to prospective clients. However, early analytics showed this was the least used/touched UI on the page.
User testing revealed why:
Users didn't understand what impact their schedule selections would have
The UI didn't communicate context for what changes would mean for opportunity matching
In a competitive industry, talent worried that indicating less than full availability would hurt their chances
Default settings were unclear, leading lawyers to avoid making changes
Preference Panel Redesign:
I created two variations for A/B testing based on initial findings:
Variation A: Contextual Guidance
Added helper text explaining how each preference affected matching
Showed real-time preview of "You'll be matched with opportunities like..."
Included reassurance that preferences improved fit rather than reducing opportunities
Variation B: Progressive Disclosure
Simplified initial view to core availability question
Revealed detailed preference options only after user indicated interest in customization
Provided examples of how other lawyers with similar preferences were successfully placed
Testing results and additional insights:
Most users didn't need to make changes often—they set preferences once and revisited only when life circumstances changed
Lawyers needed reassurance that being honest about availability wouldn't penalize them
Context about matching algorithm helped build trust in platform intelligence
I took these insights and iterated, working with internal partners to provide more clarity and helper text communicating that changes wouldn't negatively impact opportunities. The final design featured:
Clear default settings with explanation of what they meant
Contextual help showing how preferences translated to opportunity matching
Regular reminders that preferences could be updated anytime
Examples of successfully placed lawyers across different availability profiles
Axiom for Clients: Self-Service Talent Discovery
The Client-Side Challenge
With Axiom for Talent establishing the lawyer experience, I moved to the complementary challenge: enabling clients to independently discover, evaluate, and engage legal talent.
I identified key values the client experience needed to deliver:
Easy talent browsing with relevant filters (practice area, experience level, availability, location)
Scannable metadata of skills, credentials, and past work
Actionable items for follow-up (save favorites, request interviews, initiate engagement)
Confidence-building information to make decisions without sales hand-holding
Initial Card Concept Exploration
Initial designs used card-based layouts to condense lawyer information into bite-sized, scannable chunks. The card approach offered:
Visual scanning efficiency
Consistent information presentation
Easy comparison between candidates
Mobile-responsive flexibility
However, conversations with leadership about data density and client needs revealed tensions:
Cards limited how much information could be displayed
Clients wanted detailed credentials before reaching out
Hierarchy of information varied by client segment (in-house counsel prioritized differently than procurement)
Expanded views were needed but had to maintain scanability
I determined there would need to be additional functionality allowing for expanded views of talent that existed outside the card view experience. These expanded views would provide depth while maintaining the card grid for browsing and comparison.
Iterative Design & Information Architecture
I worked closely with product team to determine which data points were most valuable at card level before users could dive more deeply. We prioritized:
Card-level information (always visible):
Name and headshot
Primary practice area and years of experience
Key credentials (prestigious firms, notable matters)
Availability status (available now, available in 2 weeks, booked)
Hourly rate or rate range
Quick actions (save, request interview, view full profile)
Expanded view information (revealed on click):
Complete work history with matter details
Full credential listing (education, bar admissions, certifications)
Skills and expertise tags
Client testimonials or ratings (where available)
Case studies or representative work
Detailed availability and preferences
Card Design Iterations:
Following product team alignment, I explored several design variations:
Iteration 1: Static cards with "Learn More" button
Fixed-height cards maintaining grid alignment
Click opened modal with full profile
Pros: Clean grid, easy scanning
Cons: Required extra click to see more info, modal obscured other candidates
Iteration 2: Expandable cards within grid
Cards expanded vertically to show additional info
Pros: Maintained context of other candidates, no modal
Cons: Changing heights disrupted grid, made scanning difficult after expansion
Iteration 3: Sidebar detail view
Cards remained fixed, clicking opened detail panel on right
Pros: Maintained grid stability, kept context, allowed easy comparison
Cons: Required wider screens, reduced to single-column on mobile
Each iteration revealed lessons that were incorporated into the next version. Through feedback from product, engineering, and leadership, I settled on a hybrid approach:
Final Design:
Fixed-height cards in responsive grid for browsing
Click opens slide-out detail panel maintaining grid context
Detail panel includes all extended information plus comparison tools
Mobile view uses bottom sheet for details rather than sidebar
"Add to shortlist" and "Request interview" CTAs prominent in both views
Client Homepage Integration
I incorporated the final card design into the client homepage, organizing the experience around client workflow:
Top of page:
Search and filter controls (practice area, experience, availability, rate range, location)
Saved searches and shortlists for returning clients
Recommended talent based on previous engagements
Main content:
Grid of talent cards meeting search criteria
Sorting options (relevance, experience, rate, availability)
Filters and active search parameters clearly displayed
Sidebar:
Shortlist preview showing saved candidates
Quick stats (X lawyers available, Y match your requirements)
Request support from Axiom team for complex needs
I also validated the design on the actual Axiom public website to ensure visual consistency and information density worked across contexts.
Validation & Launch
Once product and engineering were satisfied, I shared designs with internal staff and select "super user" clients for feedback, which was very positive. Clients appreciated:
Ability to browse full talent pool rather than curated subset
Clear availability indicators preventing outreach to unavailable lawyers
Easy comparison between similar candidates
Transparent rate information earlier in process
We moved into production and after rollout received enthusiastic response from the user base. The ease of filtering candidates, comparing experience, and understanding availability made the experience more seamless and helped internal partners secure more engagements while speeding the process for all parties involved.
[VISUAL: Client homepage showing search/filter interface, talent card grid, detail slide-out panel, and mobile views]
Axiom for HQ: Internal Operations Platform
While the external products (Talent and Clients) received significant attention, the internal HQ platform continued evolving to support the new ecosystem.
Enhanced Features:
Intelligent Matching Dashboard:
Automatically surfaced best-match lawyers for new opportunities based on practice area, experience, availability, and past performance
Bulk actions for managing multiple candidates simultaneously
Pipeline visibility showing all opportunities in various stages
Account Management Tools:
Client relationship tracking and engagement history
Revenue forecasting based on active and pipeline engagements
Lawyer utilization metrics and capacity planning
Communication Hub:
Centralized messaging between staff, lawyers, and clients
Template library for common communications
Activity feed showing all interactions across the platform
The HQ enhancements focused on shifting internal staff from operational coordination to strategic oversight—letting the platform handle routine matching and coordination while humans added value through relationship management and complex problem-solving.
Key Design Decisions
Decision 1: Common UI Library vs. Product-Specific Design
The Problem: With three distinct products serving different audiences (lawyers, clients, internal staff), should we create tailored experiences for each or establish common design language? Custom designs could optimize for each user type, but would slow development and create inconsistent brand.
Alternatives Considered:
Option A: Fully custom experiences - Design each product independently optimized for its audience—better user fit but slower development, inconsistent brand, harder maintenance
Option B: Single universal design - Use identical components across all products—fast development but potentially compromising usability for some audiences
Option C: Common foundation with contextual variations - Establish shared design system with flexibility for audience-specific adaptations
Why This Solution: I advocated strongly for Option C—the common UI library approach—because it balanced multiple objectives:
Development velocity: With limited engineering resources, reusable components meant features could be built 30% faster once the library was established
Brand consistency: Lawyers, clients, and staff all experienced "Axiom"—having a consistent design language reinforced brand and made cross-product navigation intuitive
Quality through refinement: Rather than designing components three times (once per product), we could invest in making each component excellent and reuse it across contexts
Scalability: As new features were needed, the library provided building blocks rather than requiring custom design each time
Maintenance efficiency: Bug fixes, accessibility improvements, and visual updates propagated across all products
The key was designing the system with enough flexibility to accommodate different contexts without requiring completely custom components. For example, the profile card component worked for both lawyer profiles (in Client product) and client profiles (in HQ) with different data fields but consistent structure.
Decision 2: The Lawyer Preference Panel Redesign
The Problem: The "My Preferences" panel was critical for matching lawyers with appropriate opportunities, but was the least-used feature. How could we make schedule and preference management intuitive, reassuring, and actually used?
Alternatives Considered:
Option A: Simplify to binary available/unavailable - Reduce complexity to on/off toggle—simple but didn't capture nuanced availability
Option B: Required preference setting during onboarding - Force lawyers to set preferences before accessing platform—ensure engagement but potentially frustrating
Option C: Contextual guidance with progressive disclosure - Start simple, provide clarity on implications, reveal detail as needed
Why This Solution: User testing clearly pointed to Option C. The problems weren't complexity or too many options—they were lack of context and fear of consequences.
Contextual clarity: The redesign showed lawyers how their preferences translated to opportunity matching: "Based on your preferences, you'll be matched with part-time corporate governance roles in New York"
Reassurance: Added explicit messaging that preferences improved fit rather than reducing opportunities: "Setting preferences helps us find engagements you'll love. You'll still see all opportunities—we'll just prioritize your matches"
Smart defaults: Pre-populated preferences based on lawyer's background and past successful placements, with clear indication these could be changed
Progressive disclosure: Started with high-level availability question, then revealed detailed preferences if lawyer wanted to customize further
Examples and social proof: Showed how lawyers with similar preferences were successfully placed: "Lawyers with part-time availability secured an average of 3 engagements in the last 6 months"
Testing the redesign showed 4x increase in lawyers actively managing their preferences, with 85% of users reporting the interface was "clear" or "very clear" compared to 22% with original design.
Decision 3: Client Card Information Hierarchy
The Problem: Clients evaluating legal talent needed substantial information to make confident decisions, but displaying everything at once created overwhelming, unscannable cards. What information should be immediately visible vs. revealed on demand?
Alternatives Considered:
Option A: Comprehensive cards - Show all relevant information in card view—complete but overwhelming, hard to scan
Option B: Minimal cards with full-profile modal - Show only name and photo, require click for any details—clean but created extra friction
Option C: Strategic summary with expandable details - Surface high-priority information in card, provide easy access to depth
Why This Solution: Through testing with actual clients and internal staff who understood client priorities, we identified information that absolutely had to be in card view:
Always visible (card level):
Identity - Name, photo, location (needed for quick recognition and basic fit)
Expertise - Primary practice area and years of experience (needed for relevance assessment)
Availability - When they could start (needed for urgent staffing decisions)
Rate - Hourly or project rate range (needed for budget fit)
Key credential - One standout element (top firm, notable matter, special certification) for differentiation
Everything else—detailed work history, complete credential list, client testimonials, case studies—could be in the expanded view because clients wouldn't need this for initial filtering. They'd only dig into these details for candidates who passed the initial relevance scan.
This hierarchy enabled clients to scan 20-30 candidates in under 2 minutes to identify 3-5 strong matches, then spend 5-10 minutes per candidate in detailed evaluation. Without this prioritization, clients got bogged down in information overload and abandoned the search.
The final card design tested successfully with 92% of clients able to identify relevant candidates within first page of results, and 78% requesting interviews without contacting Axiom staff for guidance.
Final Design System & Products
Comprehensive Three-Sided Platform
The final Axiom platform ecosystem delivered cohesive experiences across three distinct products, all built on the common UI library:
Axiom for Talent - The Lawyer Portal:
Professional profile with rich credential showcase
Dashboard showing active engagements and opportunity pipeline
Preference management with contextual guidance
Resource center with guides for success on engagements
Direct messaging with account managers
Analytics showing profile views and opportunity matching
Axiom for Clients - The Talent Marketplace:
Advanced search and filtering for talent discovery
Card-based browsing with strategic information hierarchy
Detailed profile views with comprehensive credentials
Shortlist management and candidate comparison tools
Interview request and engagement initiation flows
Engagement management dashboard for active projects
Axiom for HQ - The Operations Platform:
Intelligent matching dashboard with automated recommendations
Account management tools for client relationships
Pipeline visibility across all opportunities and engagements
Communication hub for coordinated outreach
Analytics and reporting on platform health and business metrics
Admin tools for user management and platform configuration
Additional Initiatives & Lessons
Analytics & Business Intelligence
Beyond the core product work, I contributed to establishing data-driven decision-making infrastructure:
Power BI Integration:
Helped brand and design Power BI dashboards for executive reporting
Created visual standards ensuring consistency between product UI and analytics views
Designed key metric displays for tracking platform health (lawyer engagement, client activity, time-to-placement)
ML Contract Analysis Spinoff:
Participated in design for machine learning tool that could read contracts and surface needed amendments or addendums
Applied design system principles to ensure consistent experience even in experimental products
Provided UX guidance on presenting AI-generated insights to risk-averse legal professionals
Team Management & Process
Communication and Timeline Management:
Managing design work across 2 core external products, 1 internal platform, and supporting a spinoff organization required systematic communication and expectation setting.
I established clear processes:
Weekly bandwidth sharing: Communicated capacity and current priorities to product and engineering teams
Timeline commitments: Set clear deliverable dates and held team accountable to them
Stakeholder updates: Regular check-ins with leadership on progress and blockers
Team rituals: Design reviews, critique sessions, and knowledge sharing
Mentorship and Team Development:
I mentored junior designers on my team, providing:
Feedback and coaching on design craft
Opportunities to present work to leadership
Ownership of feature initiatives appropriate to skill level
Career development guidance and skill-building projects
This investment in team development paid dividends—junior designers grew into confident contributors who could independently handle features while I focused on strategic initiatives and cross-product coordination.
Results & Impact
Quantitative Results:
Efficiency & Speed:
40% reduction in time-to-placement (from average 18 days to 11 days)
2.5x increase in self-service client engagement (clients initiating without sales intervention)
35% reduction in internal staff time spent on manual matching and coordination
Platform Adoption:
3x increase in lawyer profile completeness (from 40% to 82% having complete profiles)
65% of lawyers actively using Talent platform monthly (vs. 12% logging into old system)
78% of client searches resulting in interview requests without staff assistance
User Satisfaction:
4.3/5 average rating from lawyers on Talent platform experience
4.1/5 average rating from clients on self-service talent discovery
Support inquiries reduced 65% for talent availability and vetting questions
Business Impact:
Product expansion: Successfully evolved from 1 internal tool to 3 distinct products
Development velocity: Design system accelerated feature development by estimated 30%
Competitive positioning: Client-facing platform became key differentiator in sales process
Lawyer retention: Increased re-engagement rate (lawyers taking multiple opportunities) by 28%
Design System Value:
The UI library created lasting organizational value:
50+ reusable components documented and implemented
3 products built on common foundation without duplicated effort
Consistent brand experience across all touchpoints
Faster onboarding for new designers and engineers with clear patterns
Reduced QA time through standardized component behavior
Adoption & Behavioral Changes:
Within 12 months of launching external products:
4,000+ lawyers actively managing profiles on Talent platform
500+ client companies using self-service talent discovery
Internal staff shifted focus from operational coordination to strategic relationship management and complex matching
Platform became central hub replacing scattered email, spreadsheet, and phone coordination
The most significant indicator: organic growth through word-of-mouth, with lawyers and clients referring others to the platform based on positive experiences.
Qualitative Feedback:
"For the first time since joining Axiom, I feel like I have visibility into my career here. I can see opportunities, track my interviews, and actually shape what kind of work I want to do. This platform makes me feel like a valued professional, not just a name in a database." — Senior Corporate Attorney, 12 years experience
"The self-service talent search has been transformative for our legal operations team. We can browse lawyers, compare credentials, and initiate interviews without waiting for our Axiom rep to send us options. It's like LinkedIn, but actually useful for legal staffing." — Legal Operations Manager, Fortune 500 technology company
"The design system Jon established didn't just make these products consistent—it fundamentally changed how we work. Features that used to take months now take weeks because we're not reinventing components every time. It's been the gift that keeps giving." — Engineering Lead, Axiom Platform Team
"Jon's ability to balance execution with team development was remarkable. He was designing across three products while mentoring junior designers and collaborating with multiple stakeholders. The team he built and the processes he established continued delivering value long after individual features launched." — Head of Product, Axiom Law
Reflections & Learnings
What Worked Well:
Design system investment paid off exponentially: Taking time upfront to audit existing UI, establish component library, and align with engineering created velocity dividends throughout the project. While it initially felt like we were slowing down to build infrastructure, it ultimately accelerated development by 30% and ensured quality remained high across rapid feature development.
User testing caught critical misunderstandings: The preference panel would have launched with confusing, rarely-used interface if we hadn't tested with real lawyers. User research revealed that the problem wasn't complexity—it was lack of context and fear of consequences. This taught me that when features aren't being used, the first question should always be "do users understand what this does?" rather than assuming they don't need it.
Three-sided marketplace requires systems thinking: Designing for lawyers, clients, and internal staff simultaneously was complex, but the ecosystem mapping and journey visualization made it manageable. Understanding how actions in one product affected experiences in others prevented us from optimizing for one user type at the expense of others.
Starting with internal tool was strategic: Beginning with HQ enhancements (rather than jumping straight to external products) gave us low-risk environment to test design patterns, establish component library, and build engineering partnership. The internal staff were forgiving of iteration and provided valuable feedback that informed external product design.
Mentorship scaled impact: Investing in junior designers' growth initially reduced my personal output, but quickly multiplied team capacity. By mid-project, they were independently owning features while I focused on cross-product strategy and complex design challenges. This taught me that design leadership is as much about team development as personal execution.
Challenges Overcome:
Balancing multiple concurrent products: Designing for three products plus supporting a spinoff strained capacity. I addressed this by:
Establishing clear priority tiers with product leadership
Delegating appropriate features to junior designers with close oversight
Creating design templates and patterns that could be adapted quickly
Communicating bandwidth constraints proactively and negotiating timelines
Navigating legal industry conservatism: Lawyers and corporate legal teams are notoriously risk-averse and skeptical of technology. Early designs that felt innovative to us felt "too consumer" or "not serious enough" to legal professionals. I adapted by:
Adding professional credibility signals (testimonials, certifications, detailed credentials)
Using conservative interaction patterns for core workflows
Testing designs with actual lawyers and clients, not just internal stakeholders
Introducing innovation gradually rather than revolutionary changes
Managing stakeholder expectations: With limited design resources and ambitious goals, stakeholders often requested more than we could deliver. I managed this by:
Creating visible roadmaps showing current work and upcoming priorities
Explaining design rationale and trade-offs transparently
Delivering incrementally and demonstrating value to build trust for future asks
Saying no with clear reasoning and offering alternatives when appropriate
What I'd Do Differently:
Earlier and more frequent user testing with external users: While we tested with internal staff and some external users, I wish we'd established more systematic user testing cadence with both lawyers and clients. We caught issues eventually, but earlier external validation would have prevented some rework and accelerated confidence in design decisions.
More robust metrics planning from day one: We tracked adoption and usage, but I wish we'd established more granular behavioral metrics earlier. For example, we eventually learned that profile completeness correlated strongly with engagement success, but this took months to identify. Having hypothesis-driven metrics from launch would have enabled faster optimization.
Phased rollout rather than big-bang launch: We launched complete products all at once, creating stress around polish and introducing risk of widespread issues. A phased approach—launching core workflows first, then progressively adding features—would have enabled faster learning and iteration based on real usage.
More investment in design system documentation: While we created comprehensive component library, documentation of patterns and principles was less thorough. This created dependency on my knowledge for design decisions and made onboarding new designers harder. Better documentation would have scaled design quality more effectively.
Future Opportunities:
The platform foundation we built enabled exciting next-phase possibilities:
AI-powered matching: With rich data on lawyer skills, client needs, and successful placements, machine learning could automate and improve matching far beyond manual processes
Skills endorsement and reputation systems: Enable clients to rate lawyers on specific skills, creating LinkedIn-style reputation that improves matching and builds lawyer credibility
Dynamic pricing based on demand: Allow lawyers to adjust rates based on availability and demand signals, creating more efficient marketplace
Engagement collaboration tools: Extend platform to support ongoing work—document sharing, time tracking, communication—not just matching and initiation
Network effects through lawyer referrals: Enable lawyers to refer colleagues for opportunities they can't take, building community and expanding talent pool
Mobile apps for on-the-go management: While responsive web worked, native mobile apps could provide push notifications and better mobile workflows for busy lawyers and clients
International expansion: Adapt platform for Axiom's international markets with localization and region-specific legal requirements
The most exciting realization: we built not just three products, but a platform architecture that could support many future products and features. The design system, technical infrastructure, and organizational capabilities we established created sustainable competitive advantage.
Related Work
Smartsheet: Solutions First Experiences - Enterprise platform requiring cross-team collaboration and design system thinking
T-Mobile T-Priority - Multi-stakeholder product requiring credibility-first design
Starbucks IMS Uplift - Design system establishment for enterprise tools
Interested in discussing marketplace design, design systems, or B2B platform strategy?