Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Justice Designer Assistant

🎯 Role Definition

A Justice Designer Assistant is a passionate and collaborative team member dedicated to reimagining the justice system through the lens of human-centered design. This role serves as a critical support function to Justice Designers and project leads, helping to research, conceptualize, and prototype more accessible, equitable, and user-friendly legal services, processes, and tools. You'll be at the intersection of design, technology, and social impact, working directly with communities and legal professionals to understand complex challenges and contribute to solutions that improve access to justice for all. This is a hands-on role for someone eager to apply their design and research skills to tackle meaningful, systemic problems.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Design Intern or Junior UX/UI Designer
Paralegal or Legal Assistant with a passion for innovation
Research Assistant (Social Sciences, Public Policy)
Community Organizer or Non-profit Program Coordinator

Advancement To:

Justice Designer or Service Designer (Justice Sector)
UX Researcher (Civic Technology)
Product Manager (Legal Tech)
Policy Advisor with a focus on human-centered governance

Lateral Moves:

User Researcher
Policy Analyst
Content Strategist (Legal Information)
Design Strategist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Assist in planning and conducting qualitative user research, including in-depth interviews, ethnographic studies, and focus groups with diverse stakeholders such as litigants, attorneys, judges, and court staff.
Support the synthesis of complex research findings into clear and compelling design artifacts, such as user personas, empathy maps, detailed journey maps, and service blueprints.
Help facilitate co-design workshops, brainstorming sessions, and ideation activities with multidisciplinary teams and community members to generate innovative solutions.
Create low-fidelity and mid-fidelity prototypes, wireframes, and mockups for digital tools, websites, and mobile applications aimed at improving legal access.
Contribute to the redesign and testing of physical and digital legal documents, forms, and notices to ensure they are written in plain language and are easy to comprehend.
Meticulously document existing legal processes and user workflows through diagramming and analysis to identify critical pain points and opportunities for systemic improvement.
Prepare and co-present compelling presentations, research summaries, and project reports to communicate design concepts and insights to both internal teams and external partners.
Maintain and organize project documentation, research data repositories, and design asset libraries to ensure team efficiency and knowledge retention.
Actively collaborate with subject matter experts, including legal professionals, technologists, and community advocates, to ensure design solutions are legally sound, technically feasible, and socially impactful.
Provide key support during usability testing sessions, which includes recruiting and scheduling participants, preparing test scripts, taking detailed notes, and helping to analyze feedback.
Develop clear and effective data visualizations, infographics, and system diagrams to explain complex legal ecosystems and user interactions to a non-expert audience.
Assist in drafting and editing communication materials, such as website content, FAQs, and instructional guides, to explain new services or process changes to the public.
Conduct thorough literature reviews and landscape analyses of existing innovations, academic research, and best practices within the global access-to-justice and civic tech communities.
Help establish and follow ethical guidelines and trauma-informed protocols for conducting research with vulnerable populations and individuals experiencing legal crises.
Provide essential logistical, administrative, and coordination support for design sprints, project milestones, and stakeholder meetings.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis, particularly with user research data, to uncover trends and inform design decisions.
Contribute to the organization's broader data and design strategy by sharing insights from front-line research and identifying new opportunities for impact.
Collaborate with various internal units and external partners to translate stakeholder needs and user requirements into actionable engineering and design tasks.
Participate actively in sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives as part of an agile or lean project team.
Attend court proceedings, legal aid clinics, or community meetings to gain firsthand contextual understanding and build empathy for user experiences.
Assist in the development of grant proposals and project pitches to secure funding for new justice innovation initiatives.
Monitor emerging trends in legal technology, service design, and public interest technology to bring fresh ideas and innovative approaches to the team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Proficiency with modern design and prototyping software (e.g., Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, Adobe Creative Suite).
Foundational knowledge of qualitative and quantitative user research methodologies (e.g., user interviews, surveys, card sorting, usability testing).
Ability to analyze and synthesize research data into actionable insights and compelling narratives.
Experience creating core design artifacts like user personas, journey maps, service blueprints, and wireframes.
Strong visual communication and information design skills, with an eye for clarity, hierarchy, and accessibility.
Familiarity with collaborative digital whiteboard tools (e.g., Miro, Mural).
Competence in project management and office productivity software (e.g., Asana, Jira, Google Workspace, Microsoft Office).

Soft Skills

Deep-seated empathy and a genuine curiosity to understand the experiences of people from diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to practice active listening and build rapport with research participants.
A highly collaborative and team-oriented mindset, with the ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary environments alongside lawyers, developers, and policymakers.
Strong analytical and systems-thinking skills, with a comfort level for navigating ambiguity and complex, ill-defined problems.
Resilience, patience, and a steadfast dedication to tackling long-term, systemic social challenges.
A growth mindset with an eagerness to learn, receive feedback, and continuously develop new skills.
Superb organizational skills, meticulous attention to detail, and the ability to manage multiple tasks concurrently.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or equivalent practical, real-world experience. We value demonstrated skills and passion as much as formal credentials.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree or advanced certification in a relevant field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Service Design, Graphic/Communication Design
Law (JD or Paralegal Studies), Public Policy, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

1-3 years of relevant experience, which can include a combination of professional roles, significant internships, academic projects, or dedicated volunteer work.

Preferred:

Demonstrated interest and prior experience in the justice system, civic technology, government services, or social impact initiatives is highly desirable. Experience working with or for underserved or vulnerable communities is a significant plus.