Legal design that's tested, not just styled
Inkling is Australia's award-winning legal design agency. Since 2018 we've redesigned contracts, terms, policies and legal services around the people who actually use them — and proved the results with real-user testing, benchmarked against our global portfolio.
What legal design means at Inkling
Legal design applies human-centred design to the law: restructuring legal documents and services around their users instead of their drafters. Done properly, it's not decoration — it's evidence-based redesign. We combine legal expertise, information design and our own primary research on cognitive diversity to rebuild documents so that a scientist, a customer, a nurse or a supplier can read them once and act correctly. The Financial Times named Inkling a winner in its Innovative Lawyers awards for exactly this work — first for legal design itself in 2021, and again in 2024 for redesigning the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's commercial agreements around its non-lawyer partners. What the FT's researchers highlighted both times is the thing we consider non-negotiable: we test. Every redesign is validated with real users before it ships. And because your documents now have a second reader — the AI systems answering questions on their behalf — every redesign we deliver is built for both. Legal design is AI readiness →
What we redesign
Consumer terms and conditions. Banking, insurance, telco and platform terms rebuilt for genuine comprehension — like our work helping HSBC create user-friendly terms for global contracts, and interactive terms for its retail banking products.
B2B and commercial contracts. Supplier codes, enterprise agreements, project agreements — including the FT-award-winning redesign of ANSTO's commercial project agreements for scientific partners.
Policies and governance documents. The internal knowledge your people (and your AI) rely on daily: workplace policies, procedures, regulatory content.
Legal services and advice. Design sprints that rethink how legal teams deliver — from a top-tier international firm's advice format to online dispute pathways and empathetic chatbots.
Every engagement can include plain language drafting, visual communication, and user testing as standalone services or one pipeline.
How we’re different to other legal design agencies
We're lawyers and designers in one team. Inkling is a law firm and a design practice which means redesigns keep their legal effect, and we can advise on the substance, not just the shape.
We test with real users, globally. "Clearer" is a claim; we deliver a measurement. Comprehension is benchmarked against our international user-testing portfolio, built across jurisdictions and cultures since 2018.
We design for cognitive diversity. Our primary research into how neurodiverse and cognitively varied readers process legal information means documents that work for your whole audience — not just the average reader who doesn't exist.
We design for the second reader. AI systems now answer questions from your documents. Our redesigns are structured so AI retrieves and represents them accurately — the discipline the market now calls AI readiness.
Recognised work
FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific — Legal Design, Winner (2021) · AI New Solutions, Winner (2024) · placements every year 2021–2026 · Good Design Australia — Gold (2024, 2025) · Clients include HSBC, ANSTO, TPG Telecom, UBS, Invesco, University of Sydney, NSW Rural Fire Service. See our full recognition record →
FAQ
What is legal design? Legal design applies human-centred design to legal documents, services and systems. It restructures contracts, terms and policies around the people who use them — combining legal expertise, information design and user testing so documents are genuinely understood, not just legally correct.
What does a legal design project cost and how long does it take? It depends on scope — a single set of consumer terms is a different project to a governance library. Most document redesigns run in weeks, not months, and we scope a fixed engagement after an initial review. Contact us for a tailored proposal.
Do redesigned documents remain legally enforceable? Yes. Inkling is a law firm as well as a design practice: redesigns preserve legal effect and compliance while removing the barriers to understanding. Simplification is drafting discipline, not deletion.
How do you prove the redesign worked? We user-test before and after with real people performing realistic tasks, and benchmark comprehension against our global testing portfolio — so you receive measured improvement, not a style opinion.
Documents your people understand. Knowledge your AI gets right. Proof for both. Talk to us about your documents →
