Maps glorious maps (and other visualisations)

Global law firms have historically used maps to show office locations, locations of 'alliance' firms and their practice reach and expertise. With the advent of the pandemic, global news channels have been using maps, both global and regional to visualise often harrowing and complex information. In our little legal tech world, maps are now in vogue again because it's never been more important to ensure complex legal content is easy to consume and deal facts are as transparent as possible.

The first time I recall seeing a map used to front a digital service provided by a law firm was in 2011. I was researching implementations of the HighQ Publisher product by it's then four clients, this was in advance of an interview with Ajay Patel and Stuart Barr for a consultant role at HighQ.

I was excited to think I was an interview away from joining a team of people who were responsible for awesome products, and predicted to continue to make waves in the legal tech market. What struck me during that research was how design was a core part of these digital services and the use of maps to simplify the vast swathes of information were vital to their success. Innovation is at the core of what HighQ stands for and taking structured data and converting it into visual cues, navigations and making things easier to consume, even in the early 2010's, was a core part of that vision.

The drive to write this post is a combination of cerebral nudges by my clever colleagues in the legal tech ecosystem. Friends Nicole Bradick and Ryan McClead have brought us Map Engine announced at the SKILLs conference last week.

This new tool looks great, which is hardly surprising considering how smart Nicole and Ryan are. I love the simple build process and interface!

Also another friend (I know, I'm also surprised I have 3) and one time colleague Dan Pryor also posted on LinkedIn his tool to deliver maps across a HighQ Collaborate site tightly integrated with iSheets. There are a number of clients who are either using Collaborate in this way or clients who need to find a way of doing this easily within the platform... The feedback to the post highlights this.

These two events happening in quick succession got me thinking.. stories, stories and maps maps glorious maps...

I look back to how this trend has faired and in the early 2010's HighQ Publisher provided clients like Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy, the ability to productise knowledge and expertise and convert them into a digital services available 24/7. This was within a framework to tailor the experience depending on who was consuming the content. Over the years more and more clients have been using Publisher to drive public content experiences, alongside premium (paid for) content using the no-code toolset available. The ability to make these solutions, part business development, part marketing, part client facing products and services has served our clients well.

The early "cross border guide" products layered a global or regional map across the top of the structured data allowing the consumers to interact with the content, compile their own custom reports based on preferences and selections and compare those outputs across jurisdictions. These were typically provided alongside the insight and alert services the platform also provides for.

I look now, at the collection of clients who are using HighQ Publisher today, to deliver knowledge, insight and in-depth commentary surrounding complex multi-jurisdictional legal challenges and it still makes me happy that these tools and ideals drive tremendous value to their clients.

The first time I saw a map on a homepage of a Collaborate site was when Scott Reid then of Littler Mendelson presented at the HighQ forum in New York some 7 or 8 years ago. It was unheard of or at least a little experimental to do this within HighQ in 2012/13. Scott had built a subscription service driven by iSheet data layered with a 50 US state map on the front end as the primary interface. I 'think' his team was the first to deliver such a service using 'custom' code across the top of the core HighQ platform. What impressed me was that from that single product he was driving successful revenue volumes and one of the main drivers for that was the simple 'map' interface to get to the complex legal employment law information.

Needless to say, over the years our clients have driven their own course with the platform and it has been amazing to see the services, solutions and products that have been built using custom code across the top of the platform. It's always great to see them in awards submissions and at our own forums. Clients like Addleshaw Goddard, Osborne Clark, Jackson Lewis, Pinsent Masons and Corrs Westgarth are but a few of these clients who have driven the need to provide detailed visualisations within the platform. Everything from maps, to tables, to deal locations, custom property layouts all have been seen in the past using data driven from iSheets and other sources.

In 2018 HighQ launched Collaborate 4.3 which contained the very first iteration of the now data vizualisation micro service. It's focus and objective was to democratise the use of visualisations relating to project and matter related work, producing charts and KPI cards for task and deal data. The idea that a client now didn't need a "coder" to develop these things was a key driver for the platform, it's success and important to ensure these barriers were reduced.

The need to use images to simplify complex data is not lost on me.. I hate reading (ironically writing a blog post for others to read) and my small brain relies on processing pictures, and most of the time it fails to even do that. In my 9.5 years at HighQ, improving how we can visualise content has been the norm and we endeavour to improve these core capabilities release after release. The advent of a more 'design' led approach in the creation of digital products within law firms. means that we need vast collections of smart people driving the industry forward.

Needless to say the more organisations like HighQ, Theory & Principle, Sente Advisors and Engineer.Legal focused on this challenge, to reduce complexity and increase accessibility by making everything easier to consume from individual contract data, deal/matter facts and complex legal knowledge the better in my opinion.

Thanks for reading..