Designing Legal Experiences with Demetrios Karis

I am just back from a vacation that took me across three states, one Navajo reservation, and some federal land in the southwest of the United States. Departing the humid and heavily greened northeast to the dry and brown and red landscapes of the southwest was a major transition. I have never spent that much time in that part of the country, so it was, you might say, quite the experience. Traveling throughout the region really revealed the expansiveness of it. The lack of foliage will do that as you can kind of see to the horizon between the buttes and mesas. 

It also was my first time flying in a long time where I didn’t have to take off my shoes going through security. That was exciting. Well, maybe not exciting but one less thing to manage and deal with given all the other rules and restrictions that we have to face when trying to get to our lanes. 

When thinking about the trip and all the jurisdictions I crossed, it can be hard to keep track of what I can and cannot do. City laws, state laws, federal laws, tribal laws, airport regulations. What’s legal in Vegas is not legal in Sedona. What you might be able to do in Page, Arizona isn’t necessarily the same as St. George, Utah. You get the point. And let’s keep in mind that all of this started in Boston, Massachusetts. The law can be complicated no matter what, and only becomes that much more challenging when you are throwing in all of these different environments. 

And did I mention the seemingly constant shift in time zones as you cross different borders? 

My guest today has a keen interest in making the law more manageable. Professor Demetrios Karis has been exploring ways of improving legal design to improve access and outcomes for citizens engaging the courts. As we discuss, there is plenty of work to do that keeps him and his students busy. From legal forms, to wayfinding in courts, to translating legal procedures, to legal language itself, the law has a lot of room to make things easier and create better experiences.

I talk with Demetrios, who is a colleague of mine at Bentley University, about the origins of his user experience career through this PhD in Experimental Psychology from Cornell. He shares his first job at Grumman Aircraft, where he was looking at the design of cockpits and instrumentation as part of their internal research and development group. He shares his journey to Verizon, and then to Google where he learned more about doing qualitative research and ethnography. He then discusses how his teaching at Bentley University and experiences in the court system resulted in working with the Massachusetts courts to try to improve access and usability of courts and the law. As he states, the court system is designed by lawyers for lawyers. Despite that, more people are representing themselves, which results in massive challenges on what to do and how to do it. 

We also talk about his writing on the collapse of human civilization resulting from the sustainability crisis, and how we need to tackle challenges in complex systems through intensive study, creativity, and determination to make positive changes. 

Demetrios Karis LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/demetrioskaris/

Demetrios Karis Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Demetrios-Karis