Applying Legal Design to Write Better Investigation Reports
Applying legal design — plain language, information architecture, visual cues — to write investigation reports that are clearer, more usable, and more defensible.
We integrity professionals produce countless legal documents. Even if we’re not lawyers.
Of course, there are all those documents issued in disciplinary proceedings as well as the briefs submitted before appeal boards and international tribunals.
But don’t forget investigation reports. They are the central piece of these disciplinary and appellate proceedings. Whether we want it or not, these reports have a legal nature. In international organizations especially, one investigation report caters to multiple readers with varied roles, different levels of education, cultural backgrounds etc. It's more important than ever to make sure they are clear, practical, and easy to access.
Legal design, a new field combining design thinking and product design principles with legal work, aims to improve how legal documents are made and presented. Its main goal is to make legal information easier to access, understand, and use.
This approach is especially useful for investigative reports and other internal justice documents from policies to legal briefs, where the readability, legibility and usability of documents are crucial.
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Topics: Investigations
