Human-Centred Design for Future Lawyers: Rethinking Your Legal Career Path with Cat Moon at Vanderbilt Law [Ep. 4]

Are you feeling uninspired by the traditional law paths? What if you could design a career that aligns with your values, creativity, and vision for the future of law?

In this episode of Legal Innovation Simplified, I’m joined by the brilliant Cat Moon, Director of Innovation Design at Vanderbilt Law School. Together, we explore how human-centered design can transform not only the legal profession but also your personal career journey as a future lawyer.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How to rethink your law path using the principles of human-centered design.
• Why traditional legal systems often fail both clients and lawyers—and how to fix them.
• Simple tools, like the Persona Exercise and Odyssey Planning, to uncover your ideal career.
• How self-awareness, optimism, and experimentation can help you thrive in law.

Key Highlights:

1. Designing Your Life in Law: Discover how Cat’s course at Vanderbilt helps future lawyers create intentional, values-driven career paths.
2. Innovating Legal Systems: Learn why improving legal services requires a focus on the well-being of the people delivering them.
3. Practical Transformation Tools: From the Perma Map to the Delta Model, gain actionable insights to redesign your career and legal systems.
4. Mindset Shifts for Success: Explore how embracing optimism, curiosity, and experimentation can drive impactful change.

Here’s a note from Cat:

“Before doing the mapping work, read Seligman’s PERMA+ Model Explained: A Theory of Wellbeing and watch this PERMA with Martin Seligman.

Then, complete this Map Your Happy worksheet [source: University of Arizona]. The exercise helps you to develop self-awareness around those areas that are already working for you (so you can leverage this) and the areas where you need to do some work. 

You can then start designing tiny experiments that engage you in those areas of your life that need attention.”

PoLI Institute at Vanderbilt Law School

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