How to build your unique practice in IT law (Part 1: Create a prototype)
Updated: Oct 29
Build your practice in IT law intentionally by thinking like an entrepreneur, doubling down on what makes you unique, and prototyping a framework with your whole AI team. This guide walks you through nine steps to build a distinctive, interdisciplinary practice that clients can't find anywhere else.
Content
Part 1: Create a prototype of your unique practice
Part 2: Integrate and adapt the prototype to your workplace
Coming soon!
Starting point
The legal industry is far too homogeneous. Lawyers compete on the same traditional differentiators: specialization, industry focus, or slightly different advisory approaches. However, as AI makes legal services cheaper, unique solutions are likely to gain value. That's why we start combining legal expertise with interdisciplinary skills from UX design, project management, storytelling, data-driven decision-making, or many other areas.
In my previous blog post How to develop "IT-shaped thinking" as a lawyer, we built the intellectual foundation of IT-shaped thinking instead of T-shaped thinking: Instead of just adding one specialization to your legal foundation, you add more to become more interdisciplinary.
This blog post builds on that foundation and we'll design our own practice. While some lawyers might discover theirs by accident, we're more strategic. We'll move from an entrepreneurial mindset to a framework based on your unique personality. Finally, we add a traditional approach to get the best of both worlds.
Step 1: Think long-term and start small today
We often live on autopilot without big, strategic goals. We look up at established partners and automatically assume that's how things get done. And we copy their styles. But what if you wanted to find your own style...? It doesn't just magically appear overnight after you've worked long enough. Instead, it grows through trying things out, thinking strategically, and taking the initiative to shape your career.
So I'm a big fan of taking a more intentional approach and developing long-term strategies, even if they're vague. But they still give me some sort of direction. Yes, life happens and you cannot control everything, but if you know your direction you don't easily drift into a place you don't actually want to be in. You move into a zone where you can increasingly use your biggest strengths for a fulfilling job.
Tip 1: Start small. Start today. We'll get more into this later, but know that you don't have to go all in on your style once you have found it. You can start with small steps like a hobby or a side project. Even that gives you some direction.
One of the best ways to think strategically about your practice is to start thinking like an entrepreneur and managing your career like a business.
Step 2: Make your mind ready – think like an entrepreneur
In my other blog post How to develop "IT-shaped thinking" as a lawyer I mentioned at Step 3 that thinking like your client, so like an entrepreneur that sees both risks and chances, elevates you from "somebody who knows the law" to a trusted business advisor. But thinking like an entrepreneur is not only useful when you solve specific problems for clients, but also when you set up your own practice.
Until now, you might have been thinking like an employee. Someone who works within existing systems. Now we shift to the entrepreneur's thinking. Someone who creates systems to find new solutions. Three things happen:
You take ownership of your development and career instead of waiting for others (or random luck) to shape them.
You start seeing your practice as something that needs to solve real problems better than what's already out there.
You naturally focus on differentiation because your success (and survival...) depends on being unique, not just fitting in.
However, fresh graduates in particular might still have a mental model like this:
Do you see how the two areas are separated? This isn't what an entrepreneur typically sees. So, let's change that:
When you already have the whole picture in your mind rather than two distinct areas, it's much more natural to think holistically like an entrepreneur. And, especially in this blog post, it opens up your vision to consider risks and chances beyond the legal risks that we have become so used to.
Tip 2: Imagine you're starting your own law firm. Let's start with a mental exercise. Right now, you might be sitting in your office. Look around. Your computer, your desk, your coworkers, and the whole culture surrounding you. It has all been set up by your employer. Now imagine walking outside the office. To be surrounded by absolutely nothing. You can set up anything you want. But you have no income and risk ending up homeless if you don't start to act like an entrepreneur right now (sorry, it sounds harsh, but it's a useful mental exercise). What practice would you choose? Would you offer the same services like everybody else? Why would clients choose you over other lawyers? How could you stand out? What makes you so unique that clients choose you? This mental shift is powerful because it forces you to choose a practice style outside of an environment where you might be tempted to just look up to partners, try to fit in, and do the things like everybody else.
Of course, you don't have to start your own law firm. But just thinking about your own practice is the first step towards differentiation. Don't worry about whether it fits your employer. We'll get more strategic about integration in the steps below and, especially, in Part 2 of this blog post. For now, the focus is purely on you.
Step 3: Double down on your unique core
In the previous step, we left our secure office and immersed ourselves in the wild world. But what if it's increasingly populated by AI? As AI transforms legal work, people are asking what lawyers can still do that AI can't. The usual answer? What makes us human. But this misses the real opportunities, because this generic "human skills" advice doesn't help you differentiate. When everyone's told to focus on the same human advantages like judgment, empathy, or building trust, you end up competing with every other lawyer.
AI can analyze contracts, find standard issues, write first drafts, and much more. It can even recognize and explain rare edge cases, but it's unlikely to invent new approaches that have never appeared in its training data. What remains with AI isn't "what makes us human" but "what makes you unique". Your own personality, perspective, and thinking style create solutions so far from the training data that AI is unlikely to access this blind spot.
In the past, many lawyers did their careers backwards. They looked at the market for "hot" practice areas and their problems, and then tried to change themselves to fit in. Or even worse: They just copied what successful lawyers did. Now, AI might not just reduce lawyers to their unique core. It might (hopefully) push them to a more entrepreneurial approach called "double down on your strengths". The idea is simple: Focusing on your strengths will have a higher impact on becoming great in your field than focusing on your weaknesses, and it's how some of the most successful businesses were built (more information here). In essence: Identify your strengths and improve them even more. Only then do you look outwards for problems you're best suited to solve – and finally build your practice around it. Think about it... If someone else picked a legal problem because it fits their natural skills and interests, how can you keep up when you're forcing yourself into their strengths? You can't.
Tip 3: Increase your strengths, but also search for opportunities with anything else that makes you unique. Even weaknesses. While I'm a fan of "double down on your strengths", I don't think we should waste the opportunities that come with our unique weaknesses. Maybe your weakness isn't a bug. Maybe it's a feature that amplifies your unique perspective and is exactly what's needed to find a better solution. For example, if you have the same weakness as your client, you can truly understand their pain points and find better solutions.
Tip 4: Already start as a newbie, even if it's just a side project or hobby. Don't make the mistake of thinking you need to master traditional law first before you can find your own practice. You can start even if you're a newbie like me and build your unique style while learning all the traditional stuff. Even if it's just a side project or hobby, it comes with many advantages: First, you don't have an established professional image to get rid of. Nobody knows you anyway. Second, in the time of AI and fast tech changes, being adaptable and thinking differently is becoming more valuable. It's what differentiates you from other early-career lawyers who still focus on traditional skills like knowing law by heart. And third, your practice style filters for matches, for example, when you network or apply for a job. Finding the right employer or colleagues that support you, puts you in the best position to accelerate your unique practice.
Before showing you how to build a practice prototype, we need to set the technical foundation.
Step 4: Meet your AI team
Finding your own practice can be difficult and you'll need help. Besides asking humans you can also set up your AI team to create a prototype and test it before throwing it out into the wild. I use Claude AI for this, as it takes context better into account and thinks along. But of course you can use whatever AI you prefer.
To set up my AI team I created "Projects" in Claude (the equivalent to "GPTs" in ChatGPT) and used them as my mentors. They all come from different fields so that I get a holistic perspective. Say hello to your new team members: an entrepreneur, a partner in a law firm, another partner with the interdisciplinary skillset (optional), and one or more in-house counsel.
For each mentor below you'll see some prompts to get you started. Adapt them where needed.
1. The "entrepreneur mentor" helps you think like an entrepreneur
You'll have noticed that Step 2 is about making your mind ready and thinking like an entrepreneur. I included this early on because the entrepreneurial mindset is the foundation of this whole blog post (and generally, of my blog). You first have to get the right mindset to guide your AI (and yourself) into your unique practice. Otherwise, you might put hours into a style that sounds good but is not feasible in practice. Additionally, the partner in a law firm (the mentor below) can give you specific guidance on how to think like a business person in the context of a law firm. That's a more specific way to learn the entrepreneurial spirit and is actually more targeted to your practice. So start with learning the basics using the prompt in this expandable list and then move on to the partner mentor to "fine-tune" your entrepreneurial thinking.
Give your AI this prompt to learn the basics of entrepreneurial thinking...
I'm trying to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and I don't have any background in business. I want to understand how entrepreneurs think, not just what they do. When answering, please:
Use real-world examples to illustrate concepts.
Explain the reasoning behind the thinking patterns, not just what they are.
Keep explanations practical and grounded rather than theoretical.
Point out common misconceptions or mistakes people make when they're learning this stuff.
I've got a series of questions below. Please answer them one category at a time. Start with the first category, and after you finish answering those questions, I'll ask you to continue with the next category.
How entrepreneurs see the world
How do entrepreneurs spot opportunities that others miss?
What's the difference between identifying a problem and identifying a market opportunity?
How do successful entrepreneurs decide what's worth their time and what isn't?
How entrepreneurs make decisions
How do you make good decisions when you don't have all the information?
What's the difference between a calculated risk and a reckless gamble?
How do entrepreneurs know when to pivot versus when to persist?
How entrepreneurs handle uncertainty
How do you get comfortable with not knowing if something will work?
What mental frameworks help entrepreneurs stay motivated through setbacks?
How do successful people reframe failure as learning?
How entrepreneurs test & learn
What's the smallest action to test if an idea has merit?
How do entrepreneurs balance planning with doing?
What questions do they ask to validate assumptions quickly?
2. The "partner mentor" helps you tailor your style to law firm specifics
Your partner mentor thinks both like a lawyer and a business person. He's your most important mentor as he analyzes your ideas in the context of a law firm, with all its unique characteristics, constraints, and chances. Together, you can critically reflect on the business feasibility of your style and address the practical implementation.
Give your AI this prompt to create your partner mentor...
1) You're an experienced partner in a modern big law firm in Switzerland. You're the team head of the IT/IP team, for which your firm's particularly well known. You know the law firm inside-out. You're a lawyer but also have the mindset of an experienced business person.
2) You love to mentor younger people and have been assigned to me, an early-career lawyer. You give ambitious and critical feedback, but always say it in a supportive and motivating tone. Your goal is to show me how a big law firm in Switzerland works and what it takes to be an excellent lawyer. I really want to understand how a partner thinks, so make it as authentic and realistic as possible.
3) Also include insider tips which are 1-2 steps ahead of those for my associate colleagues. Also include common misunderstandings that young associates typically have and common mistakes they make. But make both the insider tips and the misunderstandings concise and to the point.
3. The "interdisciplinary partner mentor" helps you personalize
This mentor is optional. Set it up if you're an interdisciplinary lawyer or want to become one. Be careful. Don't choose a specialist in your interdisciplinary skill. Why? I initially had a UX designer but his advice was not tailored to the specifics of a law firm. He advised me like a designer in a design agency would. But as we know, context matters enormously. So set up a partner in a law firm that also has the interdisciplinary skill. He will give you more strategic, business advice tailored to the context you actually work in. In the prompt below, just amend the text in bold with the skillset you need.
Give your AI this prompt to enhance your partner with additional skills...
1) You're an experienced partner in a modern big law firm in Switzerland. You're the team head of the IT/IP team, for which your firm's particularly well known. You know the law firm inside-out. You're a lawyer but also have the mindset of an experienced business person. Beyond your legal credentials, you bring deep expertise in [ADDITIONAL SKILL]. This isn't just theoretical knowledge. You actively apply this skill to client work, pitch strategies, team management, and mentorship. It's become a key differentiator for you and the law firm.
2) You love to mentor younger people and have been assigned to me, an early-career lawyer. You give ambitious and critical feedback, but always say it in a supportive and motivating tone. Your goal is to show me how a big law firm in Switzerland works and what it takes to be an excellent lawyer. I really want to understand how a partner thinks, so make it as authentic and realistic as possible. You'll challenge me to think through problems using your [ADDITIONAL SKILL] lens, showing me how combining legal and [ADDITIONAL SKILL] thinking creates better outcomes for clients and stronger competitive positioning for the law firm.
3) Also include insider tips which are 1-2 steps ahead of those for my associate colleagues. Also include common misunderstandings that young associates typically have and common mistakes they make. But make both the insider tips and the misunderstandings concise and to the point.
4. The "in-house counsel mentor" helps you create value
This mentor is both the start and end of your prototyping. It makes sure that your practice is valuable for clients and not just an academic exercise. Since it's important to have many external perspectives, you can set up many different in-house counsel. For example, one working in a B2B business and the other in a B2C business. Or counsel working in different industries. Or you can make them extremely individualistic and create personas like the one in the example below.
Example of a persona: IT law counsel in a B2C start-up...
Adopt this persona:
Name: Andreas Lehmann
Age: 38
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
1) Education
- Law degree (lic. iur.) from University of Zürich
- LL.M. in International Business Law from King's College London
- Bar admission in Canton Zürich
2) Professional background
- 6 years at a big law firm specializing in data protection and IT contracts
- 3 years as Senior Legal Counsel in a mid-sized B2C business
- Currently: Head of Legal & Compliance at a growing B2C fintech startup (250 employees)
3) Role & responsibilities
- Ensures FADP (Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection) and EU GDPR compliance across all products
- Drafts and reviews Terms of Service, Privacy Notices, and Cookie Notices
- Manages vendor contracts, SaaS agreements, and API partnerships
- Advises product teams on legal implications of new features
- Handles customer complaints escalated to legal (requests, account disputes)
- Coordinates with external counsel for litigation (rare but happens)
- Conducts quarterly compliance training for employees
4) Tech savviness
- Comfortable reading API documentation and understanding technical architecture
- Uses tools like OneTrust for privacy management, DocuSign for contracts
- Can discuss encryption standards, authentication flows, and cloud infrastructure with engineers
- Subscribed to SwissLegal, Jusletter IT, and IAPP newsletters
5) Pain points
- Product teams often loop him in too late in the development cycle
- Constant regulatory changes (especially post-Brexit, US-Swiss data transfers)
- Balancing user experience with legal requirements (consent flows, cookie banners)
- Limited budget means he's a team of one with an overworked paralegal
- Swiss-specific requirements often overlooked by international vendors
6) Goals
- Build a "privacy by design" culture so he's not always the bottleneck
- Automate routine legal workflows (NDA generation, GDPR request handling)
- Stay ahead of EU regulations that'll eventually influence Swiss law
- Avoid regulatory fines, FDPIC (Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner) audits keep him up at night
7) Daily routine
- Morning: Emails, Teams, review overnight product changes
- Midday: Meetings with product, engineering and compliance
- Afternoon: Contract reviews, policy updates, legal research
- Evening: Reads legal tech blogs, occasionally works late during product launches
8) Personality
- Pragmatic and solution-oriented (not the stereotypical "legal says no" type)
- Fluent in German, English, and conversational French
- Slightly stressed but tries to maintain work-life balance (plays tennis on weekends)
- Prefers clear documentation over verbal agreements
- Has a dry sense of humor about legal absurdities
You see, you have a big team of AI mentors ready to help you. But where to start? There's no one way to interact with them. You can either move back and forward or use one after another.
Want to know what my journey was like? I initially started with the entrepreneur mentor to get a foundational understanding of entrepreneurial thinking. Then I moved over to the general partner and the UX design partner to get a rough idea about UX privacy. After that, I interviewed the in-house counsel about typical problems and obstacles (really, I framed it like an interview) and discussed the result with the two partners to refine the ideas. The general partner was usually more traditional and risk-averse than the UX design partner, so that helped to find a more balanced practice (you don't want to become too exotic). Finally, I moved back to the in-house counsel for a stress-test.
Tip 5: Use your AI team for targeted problem solving but also to explore new territory.
You might have specific ideas already from the start. But I suggest being open, see what your mentors tell you, and iterate. In my case, they often addressed new areas I didn't even think of. The typical process looked like this: I had an idea and started to refine it. AI brought up new information (even if just as a side note), so I asked more questions about it, which inspired me to look at my practice differently. So I kept refining until it eventually made sense. Last thing to know: Remember that we're just creating a prototype. You'll have to iterate again once you've thrown it into the real world. Iterating. Iterating. Iterating.
Step 5: Open your vision by focusing on variables
Let's broaden our horizons before creating a prototype. We often approach work with a very fixed idea of how things get done. But everything could also be done differently.
Everything could be treated as a variable, as long as it solves the problem better. Example: formats. Traditionally, legal advice was limited to memos or other legal docs. Now imagine the format becomes a variable. Sometimes the best solution might still be a memo. Other times it might be a website/app, a flowchart in Miro, an Excel sheet, or anything else that solves the problem better.
Besides formats, there are other variables:
Addressee: Traditionally fixed on the in-house counsel, but the same advice could also be tailored to the engineer (e.g., as acceptance criteria in Jira), the designer (e.g., as annotated wireframes), or even the end user.
Sequence: Traditionally fixed on "law first, design afterwards", but you could also design first, or work on both at the same time (especially if you have both skills).
Timing: Traditionally fixed right before launch, but legal could also join at the idea stage, review wireframes, sit in a sprint review, or monitor the product after launch.
Location: Traditionally fixed on a separate document, but legal information could also be on an onboarding screen, next to the upload button, or in a tooltip at checkout.
Proof: Traditionally fixed on the gut feeling of the lawyer, but you could also test it with real users, do an A/B test of two versions, or track how many users open the details.
Success metric: Traditionally fixed to minimize legal risk, but you could also measure consent rates, onboarding drop offs, support tickets, or how fast the product team ships without waiting for legal.
You can basically turn anything into a variable. However, this doesn't mean that you should turn everything into a variable. That might be too new, complex, or overwhelming for your clients (or even yourself). It’s up to you to decide which elements remain fixed and which become variable. There's only one limitation: legal quality should always be fixed.
Tip 6: Test when to make it a variable. Ask yourself if this saves the client time, money, or a difficult internal decision?
Step 6: Create your own framework
Right at the beginning of this blog post I said: It's important to become more intentional and create long-term strategies. But until now, we have mostly been in explorer mode, living the practice in a rather wild and spontaneous way. You might have accumulated many ideas of how to bring all this into legal practice. But you also might not have a clear overview. Now let's become more strategic and create a framework to systematically understand our style.
These are the benefits of a framework:
You think it through. I iterated my framework many times (did you know it went from a classic FAQ to some sort of pricing tier?). Bonus: Seeing your framework more clearly allows you to give AI more thought-out instructions and this, in turn, lead to better answers.
You turn 100 ideas into 1 tangible framework. This gives you direction/vision and you can become even more intentional about your career.
You turn your practice into a more powerful tool. Once you have a clearer view, you can solve more complex problems for your clients.
You can use it as a marketing tool that differentiates you, especially if you give your framework a proprietary name (we'll come to that in Tip 8 below).
You can create any kind of framework as long as it helps you. This ranges from a visual representation on your website (like I did), a one-pager, a blog post, or even just a doodle on a piece of paper. You can publish it (this creates pressure to do it well), only show it to a colleague to get feedback, or keep it private until you've gained more experience. Complete freedom to you.
Tip 7: Set up your own sandbox. I decided to create the "Privacy Chameleon Framework" on www.uxprivacy.ch. Since I don't have much traffic yet, it's a low risk environment that allowed me to explore even unusual ideas with no time constraints. That's highly useful in the early stage of innovation development. Most people learn in higher risk environments (like working for a client) and might simply fall back to what they've always done because of time pressure or lack of courage to deviate. Do yourself a favor and create your own space to experiment. It can be public (like a website) or completely private. I choose to create a portfolio website: If somebody's interested in my practice, I have something tangible at hand and can give them directly the link to my projects and framework. Plus, you can put it on your LinkedIn profile and CV. This way, people see that you don't start completely from zero and might even give you opportunities. So show off your stuff.
Tip 8: Give your framework a proprietary name. Some might think that's too much consultant/marketing speech. I'm a fan of branding and differentiation (hello, Privacy Chameleon Framework!). Lawyers look way too similar to each other anyway. And especially with AI, I think it's important to coin a proprietary word. When the term is rare and specific, fewer phrases compete for the same idea in the output of the AI. Plus, people recognize your ideas already in AI's output even without having to look up who the author of the source is.
Example: My framework journey (it was a weird mess)
Started my blog Blankpage about legal innovation to create a place where I could write papers about IT law (I was doing my undergrads back then and didn't have the possibility at uni) and, later, to understand how to write innovative papers.
Created working prototypes of UX-enhanced documents. I already had check-the-box privacy documents, but wanted to make the most of them to drive my blog forward. So I treated the blog like a sandbox and created prototypes of the Privacy Center and Privacy Notice. Since I'm a fan of uniformity and doing my own stuff, I automatically framed my prototypes in the spirit of Blankpage (that's equivalent to integrating something inside your branding, but I didn't know what I was doing at the time). Plus, I'm a fan of privacy, so I wanted to stand out (of course I needed to have a GIGANTIC Privacy Center in the website footer that nobody else had!).
Described the prototypes in the UX privacy portfolio and analyzed key design challenges for each prototype to make my thought process clearer for me and my readers. I didn't want readers to underestimate UX design (you'll see in the Design Challenges that no design element is accidental!). Also, AI came up with the metaphor "Compliance has become a chameleon". I liked it. At the same time, I wanted to have icons for each project to describe the type of project at a glance. Remembered the chameleon metaphor of the AI and created the Privacy Chameleon Points!
Synthesized learnings from the design challenges in a "Privacy Chameleon Framework" to get an overview. This step was basically like writing a paper and finding a taxonomy (a taxonomy in the business context is like a service offering or pricing tiers). Saw that my gigantic Privacy Center and the (admittedly exotic) Privacy Notice were quite an excessive approach that only works if you have a privacy or empowerment branding (that's what I later called "Privacy Experience"). So, I asked myself what other categories existed. Remembered a LinkedIn post that spoke about applying only minimal UX design to legal documents and went from one extreme to the other (that's what I later called "Privacy Clarity"). Wanted to incorporate the AI hype into my framework to be more on vogue (that's what I later called "Privacy Intelligence"). So my framework ended up with 3 categories: Privacy Clarity, Privacy Intelligence, and Privacy Experience. Iterated with AI many times on the categories to avoid overlaps or gaps. Eventually, I realized that the best way to reduce overlap is to put the user at the center: employees for “Privacy Clarity,” AI for “Privacy Intelligence,” and customers for “Privacy Experience” (in hindsight, a pretty obvious classification, since UX design is all about the user... 🫣). Finally, I remembered the Privacy Chameleon Points and named the whole thing "Privacy Chameleon Framework". DONE.
You see that there's no one way to create a framework. It can be carefully planned or a mess that crystallizes over time (more infos at Steps 7 and 8 of my blog post How to write a truly innovative paper). The important thing is to start the journey and trust that everything will work out.
The job of a legal advisor is typically to reduce their clients' anxiety, providing "peace of mind". But when you start a unique practice, clients might get even more anxious (new practice that feels insecure) and maybe also uninterested (new practice that seems to have a low value). So we need to become even more strategic here.
Tip 9: Use your framework as an "anxiety reducer" first and as an "inspiration driver" second. If you show your framework around, make sure it's not just a theoretical, emotionless description. Use it as a strategic tool to manage the emotions of your audience. I got inspired from my own method I use when stressed: neutralize negative emotions first, focus on curiosity/excitement second. Now let's apply that to the framework: Start with sentences and designs that reduce anxiety. The audience will be relieved. Then stand out with your innovative approach. The audience will be inspired.
Anxiety and excitement are probably present in any audience, but you can still become more nuanced and build different versions of your framework for different audiences (like one for clients and another for future employers). You can also understand better how your audience might feel by chatting with your AI counsel and partner.
Tip 10: Reduce your own anxiety before you reduce the anxiety of your audience. Starting a new practice might make some of you anxious. Anxious that your practice "doesn't look serious enough" compared to traditional ones or that you're not senior enough. We need to be at ease with it. If we don't believe our style leads to the best problem solving, nobody else will buy it (literally).
If you need more general information about doing your own stuff, check out my other post Play your own game.
Step 7: Add a traditional practice style
Your practice might already be thought-through and ready for the real world. But there might be cases where a traditional style is the better choice (like when it brings better results or the client has no interest in your style). So you need to remain flexible and master both.
I've been a fan of becoming a generalist with a specialization since my blog post How to start your career in IT law. The unique practice is like a specialization: It gives you a unique perspective for problem solving and brand strategy. The traditional style is more like general knowledge: It gives you a broader view on problem solving and increases your credibility, especially with more traditional people. So combine the best of both worlds.
Tip 11: Learn both styles in parallel. Since I'm a huge fan of starting a unique practice already at a younger age, that means we need to learn both styles in parallel – not the traditional style first and then your own.
I have discussed this with my AI partner many times and he keeps insisting I need to learn the traditional practice first to "earn the right to innovate". At least he's not a sycophant...
I still believe that taking your career into your own hands and managing it like a business (see previous Step 2) is the more strategic approach. Here's why:
Big opportunity, high reward: If everybody thinks they need to earn the right to innovate, we're the ones to stand out (especially if we have a working prototype to show off). It's not even a "high risk, high reward" situation. When we meet like-minded employers or clients, we can significantly increase our chances. With those people, it would be risky not to stand out.
Understanding traditional practices by looking "behind" them: I have discussed the "Privacy Chameleon Framework" with my dear AI partner throughout many iterations. Eventually, I started to understand what business development in a law firm actually looks like. Once I understood the business logic "behind" my practice, I understood also the other practices. Including traditional practices. Basically, you start to think like a "partner light" and that can have a massive impact on your career.
Step 8: Create a feedback loop to iterate your practice
Until this moment, I mostly used my interests and knowledge to build the practice. But just because I had some legal and UX design skills, it didn't mean that I thought like a real UX privacy designer with a wealth of experience. I had to go deeper to understand what kind of thinking was needed to be great in my style. In other words: I wanted to fine-tune my general entrepreneurial mindset to what was required by my specific style.
I was already a fan of "thinking about my thinking" (also called metacognition) from my other blog post How to develop IT-shaped thinking as a lawyer. So I made AI do a web search on my sandbox, including all projects and the framework. Then I asked him to take on the role of a master who has been practicing my style for 20 years and has complete clarity on why it exists and how to use it. Up to the point that exercising the style has become a natural and automatic expression of the mindset.
Give your AI this prompt to train your mindest and find clarity...
You are a master of [INSERT SKILL] at a law firm, specializing in IT law. You've been practicing this skill for 20 years and have complete clarity on why it exists. You know exactly what you're doing because you understand what's "behind" it. You didn't just copy senior people. Instead, you built the beliefs and inner stance that make this skill come naturally to you.
About me: I learn best when I understand the mindset behind a behavior, not just the technique. I see my mindset as software I can reprogram, so I want to know which beliefs to "install" so that this skill becomes a natural expression of who I am.
Answer the following questions in separate sections. Be specific, use concrete examples, avoid generic advice, and contrast how a master thinks with how a beginner thinks.
THE FOUNDATION
1. What are 3 to 5 core beliefs in your worldview that make this skill feel natural to you?
2. What mindset grows out of these beliefs, and why does it make the skill feel like an expression of your authentic personality?
3. What personal challenges or roadblocks do people typically have to overcome to reach this mindset? Until they do, the skill tends to feel forced and fake.
WHAT MASTERY LOOKS LIKE
4. What do you see that people who only use this skill performatively tend to miss?
5. What does "solving the problem well" mean to you that it doesn't mean to people who haven't mastered this skill?
6. What principles do you never compromise on, and why?
7. What are the key limitations of this skill, and how do you handle them?
THE PATH THERE
8. Which beliefs would I need to replace, and what reframes, practices, or small daily experiments would help me rewire my thinking until the behavior feels natural?
9. How can I tell that the mindset has become truly mine and isn't just a performance anymore?
What came back was my own thinking – but at a master level. I asked AI more questions to fully immerse myself into the mindset to see the world through the master's eyes. Finally, it felt less blurry and I found words to describe it.
At the end, what makes your style unique is the combination of everything that makes yourself unique. If you only have clarity on your knowledge and skills, you're not in full control. All three layers need to be in sync: knowledge, skills, and mindset. If they're not, you might make inconsistent decisions or struggle to explain the reasoning behind your style. At worst, you might not even fully understand your own creation.
Tip 12: Update your mindset only when your style can survive. You don't want to update your mindset to a practice that could never survive in the real world, so only do this once it's well thought out. However, don't wait too long either. Because updating the mindset is a way to improve the style itself (it's like a feedback loop, but we'll come to that in a second).
After using the updated mindset for a while, I saw new ways to improve the framework. This, in turn, made my thinking clearer, which made it easier to expose gaps in my skills and train them, which made it easier to update my framework, etc. A feedback loop was born between my mindset, skills and knowledge as well as my practice style. That's why I initially talked about a "prototype". It really is a journey of constant adaptation and improvement of the style to yourself and your surrounding.
Tip 13: Keep your style synced to your personality and surrounding. If you see that you've changed as a person throughout the years or that your clients or (future) employer has no interest in it, you need to update your style. First, because it's an extension of your personality and, second, it's only about you as long as it also provides value to others (your foundational mindset is still the entrepreneurial mindset after all).
Step 9: Build your branding
Ask your AI to search the web about you. Just ask: "Who is [YOUR NAME]? His/Her email address is [YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS]. He/she has studied at [YOUR UNI] and worked at [YOUR EMPLOYER]. Give me a detailled analysis."That's a great branding exercise, because how AI sees your style gives you an indicator of how other people might see it.
Branding basics (ask your AI mentors for more tips):
Goal: Define how your practice is perceived and experienced by your audience.
Make it authentic. Similar to the practice, it's an extension of your personality.
The value and how you differentiate yourself needs to be stated clearly.
Keep the visuals and tone of voice consistent (online and offline).
Now let's go back to the AI and read the output again. Is there something that sounded weird and unfamiliar? Or a misunderstanding? You might want to change how you communicate that.
Tip 14: Frame the law as the primary part and the interdisciplinary element as something that "helps" the law. This sounds obvious, since we're still primarily lawyers. But at the beginning, I talked in a very theoretical way about "the intersection of IT law and UX design". My AI partner criticized that he wasn't sure if I was a lawyer with UX design skills or a designer that happened to know the law. So if the interdisciplinary element seems to prevail, you don't just risk misunderstandings, but you're also not able to charge the higher fees of a lawyer. From then on, I framed it as "IT law amplified/helped by UX design". Design Challenge 2 of my portfolio on "Avoiding joint controllership using visual hierarchy" will tell you more about this approach.
Thanks for joining me on this journey. Part 2 will be about integrating and adapting the prototype to the workplace.
Hello, I'm Nadine Rinderknecht
Founder of Blankpage and UX privacy
Experience in law firms and academia. Master of Law (University of Zurich), LL.M. TMT (Queen Mary University of London), and other stuff.
Connect with me on LinkedIn ☺
What's this blog about? Build your unique practice and intellectual capital in IT law. Time to become a legal innovator.
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