A shared legal dashboard
“Working with Graham over the past six months was a real pleasure. He is a highly dependable designer who took ownership of the design language for a complex, large-scale product, delivering a strong design system that the business can confidently build on. Graham brings a calm, thoughtful approach to collaboration and handles feedback with maturity and professionalism. His ability to balance craft, structure, and teamwork made a meaningful impact on the project, and he would be a valuable addition to any product team.”
Project summary
Led design for a large-scale SaaS legal dashboard, covering UI, styleguide and design-system architecture.
Legal workflows were fragmented and difficult to scale across the business.
Designing a maintainable system for 1,000+ screens while collaborating closely with legal professionals and developers.
A centralised SaaS dashboard and design system supported 1,000+ screens and helped common legal operations run 20 - 30% faster.
My role
I led product design for Freshfields’ SaaS legal dashboard, working with legal professionals, product stakeholders and developers to turn specialist workflows into a system the business could maintain.
My role covered the UI, styleguide and design-system architecture for a large, multi-module platform with more than 1,000 screens.
Core dashboard modules and legal matters overview
Problem
Freshfields needed a modern, centralised way to manage legal matters across the business. Existing processes were fragmented, difficult to scale, and heavily dependent on bespoke workflows, limiting efficiency and collaboration.
Without a unified system, it was challenging for teams to navigate matters consistently or evolve the platform over time.
Multiple Sketch file tree
Design system structure and component architecture
Challenges
The core challenge was designing a system that could support highly specialised legal workflows without becoming a set of one-off screens.
This required:
- Working closely with lawyers and barristers to validate flows and terminology without over-simplifying critical legal processes.
- Designing and maintaining a system capable of supporting 1,000+ screens across multiple functional areas without redundancy or drift.
Delivery also needed to accommodate tooling constraints, including InVision syncing limitations, without slowing progress.
Key decision
The important decision was to standardise repeated legal-workflow patterns in the design system rather than solve every module as a bespoke screen, keeping 1,000+ screens maintainable without flattening specialist legal needs.
Shared patterns and guidance for consistent implementation
Outcome
A SaaS dashboard was delivered, supported by a styleguide and a modular design system spanning four libraries (UI elements, navigation, pop-ups and widgets).
User testing with legal professionals informed refinements to prescribed flows. The final system made updates easier to apply across teams and modules.
The platform centralised legal workflows and gave the team reusable patterns for future product work.
- Reduced cognitive load across key workflows through clearer hierarchy and progressive disclosure
- 20 - 30% faster task completion for common legal operations
- Improved usability across complex data views, reducing reliance on PDFs and offline workarounds
- Stronger stakeholder confidence in the SaaS direction
Scalable UI patterns supporting rapid feature delivery
