LegalTechTalk 2026: Why Legal Design Belongs in Legal Tech - Mia Ihamuotila - E14

0:00What happens when the brightest minds in legal, technology and innovation come together to shape the future of our profession? Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast Legal Tech Talk 2026 miniseries. As the UK's number one legal podcast and show ranked in the top 1 % of podcasts globally, we're delighted to be returning as the official media partner for Legal Tech Talk for the third time. Having supported this event since the beginning, we've witnessed firsthand how it has become Europe's largest legal technology conference, bringing together the people, ideas and innovations transforming the legal industry.

0:37Across this special series, we'll be speaking with some of the world's leading legal professionals, founders, technologists, change makers to explore what's next for law. Because our mission remains the same, inspiring legal minds, transforming legal futures. Let's get into it.

0:58Hello everyone and welcome to the Legally Speaking podcast sponsored by Clio, recording live here at Legal Tech Talk 2026 in London. Joining me now is another very special guest. Please kindly introduce yourself, name, title and organisation.

1:14Mia Ihamuotila:Thank you Rob, happy to be here again. My name is Mia Ihamotila, I come from Finland, Helsinki and I work as a legal transformation specialist in a law firm, legal tech and design lawyer, and additionally I'm running Legal Design Summit as the biggest legal design event in the world. You sure do, and you did something very special this year at Legal Tech Talk. Tell us. So, you might see that I'm in an unusual outfit in this conference, and, well, I convinced Bradley, the CEO, to let me open the conference this year as an opening show. I'm also a professional dancer and I've had a vision for many years now to be able to tell the story of legal evolution through movement and dance performance.

2:02Mia Ihamuotila:So that's what I did. You did a fantastic job and I was lucky enough to see it this morning. I thought it was incredible. Everyone here is obviously talking about transformation this year. In your view, what's the single biggest shift happening in the legal industry right now that people can no longer afford to ignore? Surprise! AI, of course, but I'm approaching that from a different angle. Also in the choreography that I created and the story and the visuals and the music that we had created for that, the key aspect in it is that we need the original, let's say, ancient knowledge, the very thing that we began with as human beings that we all have within us.

2:44Mia Ihamuotila:we need that essence together with the new wave of AI. And when we combine those two and let those two things merge, then a new era can surface. Absolutely. Can't go onwards only, you know, having the tech in our eyes. Yep, no, well said. And talking of new eras, we're another year on. Legal Tech Talk is getting exponentially bigger. It's very much on the map now as the go-to legal event. what brought you specifically to Legal Tech Talk 2026 and what's been your biggest highlight I guess I can guess thus far or biggest insight you've picked up along the way this year yeah well I got to open the conference so that was the highlight and it was just a while ago yeah that was just a beautiful way to be able to collaborate and co-create in this conference I believe in co-creation so the more we can do that in conferences and bring a sense of community.

3:45Mia Ihamuotila:That's something I appreciate a lot. And you know, we like to collaborate. I always say collaboration is domination. We is greater than me. And you're a great example of that and the community that you're building around the world. You spend a lot of time at the forefront of the industry. What's one legal problem or challenge you're most passionate about solving right now? And why does it matter? The art of thinking. I also hosted a workshop on Monday as a side event about the art of thinking. And in essence, I think we should identify more different thinking modes within our own brain and then also be able to translate those to AI agents, for example.

4:24Mia Ihamuotila:So we were prototyping AI agents that have system prompts about thinking and different thinking modes because lawyers are inclined to usually apply only certain thinking modes and the profession hasn't required other thinking modes before. So now the world requires a lot more thinking modes, let's say, iterative thinking, process-oriented thinking, systems thinking, computational thinking, so many that the legal profession hasn't been applying before. and now it's a challenge to recalibrate our brains and therefore also elevate our own thinking. Not dump our thinking to AI, but kind of develop along the AI and I think that's the crux of the matter.

5:16And you're doing a fantastic job of educating us with that as well. This question will resonate with you deeply, the human impact I'm going to now because we're hearing a lot often about technology, innovation, automation, AI of course But if we get this right, what is the real human impact? How does this improve life for lawyers, legal professionals, legal teams, clients and overall society? If we get it right in terms of the technology, automations and innovations that's happening.

5:41Mia Ihamuotila:Ideally, we get more space within our minds so that we can meet and connect, meet on depth, and also have a deeper sense of thinking and navigate between different thinking modes. But that doesn't happen in a busy environment where you don't have time to think. So ideally, I hope, AI is providing us space to think and think more diversely. So diverse thinking, agile thinking. And that happens in a culture where that is enabled. So organizations are now facing a challenge to create an environment, design an environment where that is possible for the human minds. that's interesting very interesting and I love all of your insights and that's why I'm always so keen to collaborate and catch up with you, let's fast forward a few years now, what will seem completely obvious in say 2030 that many legal professionals are perhaps still ignoring well I hope that AI is going to be kind of our second brain not in a way that we dump our thinking but it's an extension of our thinking and our brain capacity and I hope that's going to be obvious and there we need the intuitive ancient knowledge, wisdom that has been on earth from the very beginning so I hope that will be obvious it's a second brain, an extension of thinking not dumping thinking but elevating thinking it's taking us to a whole new level, right?

7:32I agree with that If you had the attention of every law firm, leader, managing partner, general counsel, lawyer, legal tech, legal operations professionals, watching and listening to this right now, what's one action they should take over the next 90 days to prepare for a better future? One action.

7:50Mia Ihamuotila:Create legal sandboxes and experimentative spaces in the organizations and allowing people to use time for that, invest time in that. I like that. Okay, very practical, very tactical. What's one belief about the legal profession you hold, be it legal technology, future of law, that perhaps most people might disagree with? I think there are people who disagree with my second brain thesis, you know, and especially people who have fear of losing their identity in this age. So, yeah, there might be some challenges in kind of digesting this idea of AI elevating us to a new level because it might trigger fear.

8:40Mia Ihamuotila:Fear. And when you're in a fear state, then you can't be open for possibilities. That's usually restricting for the mind. So if we're in a fear state, we can't see the possibilities. That can be triggering to talk about possibilities if one is in a fear state. So it's an interesting era right now because we're navigating through a lot of emotions. We are. We are. And I think you're doing a great job of educating and taking us along that journey. The Legally Speaking podcast is all about inspiring legal minds, transforming legal futures. So my final question is this. What's one skill, mindset or behavior you believe will separate tomorrow's leaders from everyone else?

9:22Mia Ihamuotila:Process-oriented and systematic thinking that you're able to map out and zoom out to the bigger picture and see connections between smaller things. It's a really, really, really important capability to be able to zoom out, see connections, create systems, and also not jump into conclusions too early. Because lawyers usually want to solve everything very quickly. So when I'm working with lawyers in workshops where we're kind of using this zooming out technique, I always need to remind them to ask just questions just answer and brainstorm on the questions that I've given and not provide any answers yet so not trying to solve anything too quickly but asking better questions that curiosity okay finally if people want to learn more about you your events and what you're getting up to where can they go feel free to shout out any websites any social media handles we'll share them in this episode for you too You will find me in LinkedIn, Mia Ihamotila, and also from Instagram, Mia Mundi, where I do more creative stuff and post things for my dancer's career.

10:45There we go. Well, it just leaves me to say thank you so much once again for joining me live here at Legal Tech Talk in London. But from all of us here on the Leeds Beam podcast, sponsored by Clio, over and out. Thank you for listening to this week's episode. If you like the content here, why not check out our world-leading content and collaboration of the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord. Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com. There's a link to join our community there. Over and out.