Everlaw
Integrating with Microsoft's API
In Everlaw's mission to simplify complex legal work, integrating with Microsoft Azure Active Directory became critical. Driven by our expanding corporate user segment, we learned that large corporations (10k+ employees) especially need a robust employee directory when faced with legal action.
This case study explores how we built the Everlaw dynamic directory: a synced and scalable on-platform directory with native legal holds tools.
It's just that: a hold on any data that might be related to a legal case.
Issuing a legal hold is a pivotal moment in the early stages of litigation. It's how legal teams let people know to preserve relevant data that may be used in court later. Historically, corporations have relied on manually keeping track of which legal hold needs to be sent to which people.
As employees and their data can shift minute-by-minute, quickly reaching the right individuals becomes harder the larger the corporation. The fragmented state of legal software compounds this difficulty, as corporations often have different systems for directories vs. legal holds, which requires manual work.
Users need an integrated system that works with their employee directories, including Microsoft Azure, to enable them to send accurate and prompt legal holds to a large number of people.
I designed Everlaw's dynamic directory, the first system in Everlaw to continuously sync with a 3rd-party service to provide users with the most current data.
In 2021, Everlaw released v1 of its legal holds tool, with a static directory system in which people need to be added and updated manually. However, we were still losing contracts with our key corporate segment, and heard that the lack of directory integration turned out to be a non-starter in negotiation.
Through 10+ user interviews, we validated our assumptions as to why it was so impactful:
A key piece to this project was figuring out how to deliver up to date information to users without bogging them down with complex flows of syncing with a 3rd party. Users need to focus on their key goal: sending legal holds.
To accomplish that, I sought out engineers' perspectives, who described the complexity of receiving data from Microsoft and potential errors, including disconnecting during server restarts. Informed by their technical explanations, I designed a resilient system that builds users' trust in their data without distracting them.
When I build and grow products, I strive to ensure they don't just meet user's needs, but the business's as well; this project is a prime example of that. Although a variety of users will leverage the dynamic directory, I designed with the largest corporations in mind: our business strategy's marquee customers, the users with 100k+ employees.
Early in design, I assessed Everlaw's nascent design system, identifying components that could be leveraged and those that needed building. For high-fidelity mockups, I collaborated with our design systems designer to integrate newly-developed components like pagination and filtering at scale, and I defined a responsive loading state behavior to onboard even the largest directories quickly.
Low-fi to high-fi
Upon release, the dynamic directory helped win 3 large deals, enabling and continuing sales conversations with clients strategic in the market to buy Everlaw.
In addition to sales wins, I defined several metrics to capture:
Winrate: Because directory integration was a nonstarter for our B2B customers, it's critical to keep measuring how influential the feature is in winning new contracts.
Loadtimes: As corporate users with 10k+ employees and daily updates start using the dynamic directory, we need to measure how responsive our system is to find room for improvement using real world data.
While building the dynamic directory from 0–1, I learned how critical it is to understand both technical and business constraints well.
Through user interviews and sales calls, I knew the business need was well-defined, and I leveraged this to advocate for an extensible design language that worked not just for Microsoft AD, but future services, to avoid re-work.
Working closely with engineers, even early in the project, helped me understand the behavior of updating the directory, handling errors, and its limits, which informed my design decisions to translate that into something usable for people.