Divorce Outcome Simulator

https://lexq-react.herokuapp.com

User Problem

Parties to many divorce proceedings unnecessarily choose litigation instead of settling even when a compromise is possible.

Underlying reason: In divorce proceedings, relationships tend to be acrimonious, and parties will subjectively believe they deserve a greater share of the asset then they actually do.

Lead-on consequences: (1) The parties themselves incur more time and money when embroiled in legal proceedings they unnecessarily received legal services, and (2) the society suffers loss as the judiciary system is unecessarily burdened by such cases.

Final Solution

An outcome simulator that:

  • Prompts user for factual elements of the case;
  • Generate a prediction based on statistical analysis on past cases; and thus
  • Provide an objective basis for parties to settle (it is akin to having a neutral third party providing the prediction)

Usage Walkthrough

Logging in and creating a new matter

Entering matter details and generating report

Viewing Report

Design Considerations

Target users of the outcome simulator are lawyers and not the parties to the divorce themselves.


This is because parties would need to engage the lawyers in any case and it would make little sense for parties to learn a new platform for a divorce proceeding which doesn't happen more than a few times at most.

The prediction report shows only the information that are directly relevant to the particular case.


This is because early prototypes which contained charts and showed the data in various alternative scenarios proved a little to complicated for lawyers.

Select Implementation Details

(for the nerds)

  • The frontend is built as a SPA using React to ensure a smooth experience and to allow for design of user-friendly input components (since the application requires complicated data entry).
  • The backend is built on Django in order to interface smoothly with the data pipeline and prediction models that are written in Python.
  • The application is hosted on Heroku for ease of deployment.

WordGIT

https://gitlab.com/YongJieYongJie/WordGit

User Problem

Lawyers spend unnecessarily time reinventing the wheel when developing their own document version control systems based on whichever office suite of technologies their firms are using.

Underlying reasons:

  • There is no industry standard tool (unlike GIT for software engineers). And existing proprietory tools are not cheap.
  • There is a lack of incentive of develop efficient tool because legal services are usually charged by the hour. Furthermore lawyers lack the technical expertise to develop such tools personally.

Lead-on Consequences:

  • The lack of proper document organization systems adds to the cognitive load and burden of all lawyers, especially younger lawyers who has yet to develop a system of management for themselves. This leads to lower career satisfaction and high attrition rate among lawyers.
  • Clients bear extra legal cost due to inefficiencies regarding different system used by different law firms, and very often, even different lawyers in the same firm.

Final Solution

A wrapper over GIT is written as a Microsoft Word add-in, where user can:

  • Save document versions to history
  • Compare document with previous versions
  • Send versioned documentsfor review

Usage Walkthrough

Editing and saving versions to history

Comparing with previous version

Sending for review

Design Considerations

UX is designed to be as transparent as possible (e.g., no confirmation on successful operations)


No feedback is given on successful operation

This is because lawyers are used to using Microsoft suite of office tools, which similarly does not show any confirmation dialog on successful operations (like saving).

Select Implementation Details

(for the nerds)

The .DOCX is converted to markdown (i.e., plaintext) behind the scenes before committing to GIT. This allows for display of changes on GIT clients

The add-in is really just a wrapper around GIT, Pandoc and TortoiseGIT, with specific workflows crafted around these tools.