Using visualizations to represent structural legal data in transactions
When people think of lawyers, they generally think of lawyers using words on a page or words spoken in court. Unless they have worked with lawyers through the planning and strategizing stages of a case, most people do not think of lawyers as visual creatures. The lucky few who have worked with lawyers extensively may know that, contrary to popular opinion, lawyers rely heavily on visualizations, like flowcharts and structure diagrams.
Diagrams and illustrations are inherently powerful tools for conveying ideas, and so we reached out to Tim Follett, CEO of StructureFlow (https://www.structureflow.co/), to talk about this. Tim is one of the leaders in legaltech for visualizing and modelling structures of transactions.
Tim was kind enough to talk with us about what they are doing at StructureFlow and what they have planned for the future.
“… I think in all lawyers’ minds, when they are dealing with something, there is a mental image forming in their mind. And that mental image is what guides them and provides a framework for their understanding. Even in these complex transactions, even if there is no diagram, there is a understanding, a mental model that has been built up by a person…”
Tim took us through a few of his stories in our 20 minute conversation:
how did he come up with StructureFlow as an idea
what it was like to draw structure diagrams at law firms before he created StructureFlow
the reasons why visualizations are so powerful and so useful for the work lawyers are doing
how visualizations align with the way people think
how StructureFlow is more than a 2D diagram, but is a data model for transactions
using “time as a vector” in StructureFlow
how visualizations cross language barriers and enable global collaboration
You can watch the video of our conversation here:
Transcript of conversation
(Note: transcript is automatically generated, and may contain misspellings and typographical errors)
00:00
hello everyone we're having another
00:01
casual conversation and today we have
00:03
the pleasure of talking to team folet
00:05
ceo and founder of structureflow
00:08
tim welcome hello
00:11
it's a pleasure to talk to you
00:14
absolutely pleasure to talk to you as
00:15
well horus
00:16
so we met a couple of months ago and
00:19
since
00:20
we met a couple of months ago some
00:22
really big news
00:23
has been hitting the media about
00:25
structure flow
00:26
and that big piece of news is you have
00:28
officially been adopted
00:30
by slaughter may and been rolled out to
00:33
their lawyers
00:34
it's such an impressive piece of news
00:36
tell us more about that
00:38
uh thanks very much yeah no it's really
00:40
good news for us big step forwards
00:43
obviously um you know very reputable
00:46
prestigious firm
00:48
um and for us it's a firmware deployment
00:51
so it's one of the biggest um
00:55
deals that we've done it means that
00:57
we're getting the software into a broad
00:58
range of different practice areas
01:00
across a firm not just kind of where
01:03
we've been focusing mainly on corporate
01:05
banking etc but also kind of reaching
01:07
into other pockets of the firm around
01:09
kind of employment and tax and
01:12
even disputes now as well so it's really
01:14
good news for us
01:16
that's so impressive and i saw your
01:19
presentation at legal geek a couple of
01:21
weeks ago
01:22
and i thought hey this is this is a lot
01:25
deeper than i
01:26
i thought it was it's not it's not your
01:27
standard power point
01:29
here's here's a few lines and boxes um
01:32
it actually is a file storage system it
01:35
does so much more
01:36
so so tell us what it's what does it do
01:39
today
01:42
so yeah there's there's a number of
01:43
different pieces of functionality here
01:46
effectively what we're trying to build
01:48
is a visual interface into legal
01:50
structures and transactions
01:52
and the way we think about what we're
01:53
doing is you're not just creating a
01:55
two-dimensional diagram
01:57
when you're working on a project in
01:59
structure flow you're creating a
02:01
digital model of a legal structure or a
02:04
transaction
02:06
which has a visual element to it
02:08
obviously
02:09
but it also has data and documentation
02:13
sitting beneath that and sitting on top
02:17
of a platform that allows for
02:19
collab collaboration across all the
02:21
various different stakeholders
02:23
interested in a structure or transaction
02:26
i think one of the really interesting
02:28
things is
02:29
law's not a profession that you
02:32
typically associate with visualization
02:35
and and i think visualizing legal data
02:38
is probably one of the hardest things
02:40
out there because there's a big gap
02:42
between words on the page
02:45
and images that people can understand
02:48
and it's not just you know images for
02:49
the
02:50
for the sake of images it's images that
02:52
are understandable
02:53
yeah i spent a bit of time as a as a
02:56
banking lawyer and also as an m a lawyer
02:59
so i appreciate the beauty and the
03:01
function of
03:02
structure diagrams so how
03:05
did you come up with structure flow as
03:08
an
03:08
idea where where did it come from
03:11
how have you grown it from you know
03:14
paper to where it is today
03:16
uh well um where to start uh
03:19
i'll go back to the beginning uh maybe
03:21
that's maybe that's first
03:23
um so i've always been very visual
03:27
uh going back to when i was a kid um
03:30
some of the books i enjoyed most were
03:32
the books of pictures
03:34
um history books about romans and
03:37
ancient egyptians and little pictures
03:39
and diagrams explaining things dorian
03:42
kinsley
03:43
books etc and as i
03:46
went through school and i went to
03:48
university i that that stuck with me so
03:50
when i was
03:51
learning things myself part of my kind
03:54
of method of learning was
03:56
creating diagrams um i studied history
03:58
at university and i was creating
04:00
diagrams then
04:02
timelines and mind maps
04:05
and then when i went into law school
04:08
because i converted from
04:10
history to law i started to see diagrams
04:13
pop
04:13
up in law school so you know when you're
04:16
learning about
04:17
certain topics for the first time maybe
04:18
that's um
04:21
financial assistance in a corporate
04:23
context or it's you know
04:25
structured subordination um
04:28
in a banking context finance context you
04:31
start to see these diagrams pop
04:32
up and i started doing diagramming to
04:35
help myself understand what was going on
04:37
at law school
04:38
and then when i went into practice i saw
04:41
diagrams being
04:42
used there you know in the context of
04:44
due diligence reports
04:46
um in context of um
04:49
tax papers and steps plans um
04:53
i started to do quite a lot of work
04:55
which was quite highly structured
04:57
as well i was doing quite a lot of
05:00
pensions de-risking
05:01
work it was kind of quite complex lots
05:04
of different documents that all linked
05:05
together lots of different parties lots
05:07
of different contracts
05:09
so i was creating diagrams then as part
05:11
of that and i was sharing them
05:13
with my colleagues i was sharing them
05:15
externally with clients
05:17
and as part of that process i saw the
05:21
benefits of
05:21
visualization for a lawyer but i also
05:24
saw the
05:25
frustrations that you know
05:28
you have just using the current toolkit
05:32
powerpoint drawing in words or
05:35
excel maybe a little bit of vizio or
05:38
you're using an external
05:39
dtp team just trying to create these
05:42
diagrams it's hugely frustrating
05:44
you know lots of um messing around with
05:47
shapes and lines lots of back and forth
05:49
with secretaries and external
05:52
dtp teams whatever it is just to create
05:54
something that looks good
05:56
makes sense and you know yields the
05:59
benefit of visualization
06:01
to yourself and to the people around you
06:03
and that was where the idea for
06:04
structure flow came from
06:06
really it was a realization that there
06:08
was no
06:09
piece of tooling that was specifically
06:12
designed to help
06:13
people who are involved in structured
06:16
transactions do their work and do it
06:18
visually
06:19
because as you said at the start you
06:21
know diagrams can be so much more
06:23
powerful
06:24
than text it's not it's you know the the
06:28
whole primacy of text
06:30
is there it's historic it needs to be
06:32
chipped away and i think that's
06:33
beginning to happen
06:36
it's it's like that old saying uh a
06:37
picture's worth a thousand words
06:39
and and i think that's what you're
06:42
trying to bring to to this industry
06:44
um have you have you got any statistics
06:48
around how effective visualization is
06:52
to uplifting performance of lawyers
06:55
however you
06:55
however you measure that but are there
06:58
real tangible numbers that we can point
07:00
to
07:01
yeah i mean there have been various
07:02
studies that um have come out
07:04
medical um uh
07:07
studies and um management consulting
07:10
studies around the effectiveness of
07:13
visual communication
07:15
um and you're looking at something
07:18
between
07:19
on average kind of 60 to 80 percent
07:22
faster absorption and understanding of
07:24
knowledge
07:25
than just through text alone and you you
07:28
can actually
07:29
there are games if you do some googling
07:31
online you can see there are there
07:33
are games that you can play where you
07:35
can
07:36
test your understanding of things
07:38
through both reading
07:39
a block of text and then um
07:43
uh actually trying to understand the
07:44
same thing through through a diagram
07:46
and it's far far quicker and the human
07:49
eye is
07:50
um it has it's evolved to be able to do
07:54
this because
07:55
if you go far far back um
07:59
when we were sort of living on the on on
08:01
the plains of africa and trying to hunt
08:04
and if we didn't if we weren't
08:05
successful and you know
08:07
uh catching prey then there were serious
08:10
repercussions for ourselves and our
08:11
families
08:12
um the human eye evolved in that in that
08:15
world in that context
08:17
so that you know you could see uh
08:19
differences you could
08:21
you know you were you would you were
08:22
trained you know with the eye to be able
08:24
to see
08:26
information about the world around you
08:28
that would enable you to be able to
08:29
capture prey
08:30
and it's the same thing now you know the
08:33
human eye is incredibly
08:35
capable of detecting differences and
08:39
uh and and and details um
08:43
so yeah it's only natural i think that
08:45
this uh
08:46
should filter through into the complex
08:49
work that lawyers do
08:52
so it makes perfect sense that from
08:55
a legal text to legal information
08:59
visualization perspective that leap
09:02
meant
09:02
you're now aligning with the way that
09:04
people think
09:06
and there's a there's an important point
09:08
there which is that i think in
09:11
all lawyers minds when they're dealing
09:14
with something there is a mental image
09:18
forming in their mind and that mental
09:21
image
09:22
is what guides them and provides a
09:26
framework for their understanding you
09:28
know even in these
09:29
complex transactions um
09:33
even if there's no diagram there is
09:36
an understanding a kind of mental model
09:38
that's been built
09:39
up by a person through conversations and
09:43
reading and understanding all the
09:45
different parties etc
09:48
a lot of the the language that lawyers
09:50
used
09:51
to talk about transactions of visual
09:53
metaphors
09:55
so waterfalls flows um
09:59
cliffs you know all of this you know
10:01
it's it's visual language
10:03
it's a landscape painting you know even
10:06
if someone doesn't draw it
10:07
down on a piece of paper that that image
10:09
is in their head anyway
10:11
i think yeah and you know what we're
10:14
trying to do here is allow people to get
10:16
that out of their head and onto
10:18
something
10:19
that is capable of being shared with
10:22
other people as well make to make sure
10:25
that you know if
10:27
um if you and i are talking about a
10:30
yellow bicycle that actually the way i'm
10:34
kind of visualizing that yellow bicycle
10:36
is the same way that you're visualizing
10:38
that yellow bicycle and i think that's
10:39
hugely hugely important
10:41
and i think by by creating diagrams and
10:44
thinking visually
10:45
it helps people get on the same page to
10:47
make sure they're actually thinking
10:49
about things in the same way
10:51
i can see how powerful that is i'm going
10:54
to throw a bit of a challenge
10:55
to you a bit of a challenging question
10:57
perhaps and
10:59
it comes from this idea that i read
11:01
years ago
11:02
that there are three types of learners
11:03
and you might have
11:05
you might know where i'm going with this
11:07
they're the visual learners
11:08
the audio audio learners and then
11:10
they're the kind of kinesthetic learners
11:13
and structure flow seems really leaning
11:16
towards
11:18
accommodating the visual learners
11:21
and i wonder if that is a sort of
11:24
rebuttal that you've had to think about
11:27
to kind of
11:28
how do you build your product so that
11:30
all users benefit from this
11:32
it's an it's an interesting point i mean
11:34
i i'm i'm someone that kind of
11:37
like i kind of uh i i always try and
11:41
kind of repel a little bit away from
11:43
kind of binary things
11:45
you know like is there such a thing as a
11:47
you know a visual learner who's you know
11:49
very distinct from being kind of
11:52
you know an audio learner not i'm not
11:54
sure i suspect there's a bit of a
11:55
sliding
11:56
slide um you know look i mean
12:00
our thesis is that there is a huge role
12:02
for visualization and visual
12:06
thinking and communication and analysis
12:09
um
12:09
that's not to say that you know that's
12:11
at the expense of audio or
12:13
you know doing um as well
12:16
but undoubtedly you know the the
12:19
the focus for us is in that kind of
12:22
visual interface
12:24
you know it's no longer just a diagram
12:26
there's a visual interface into
12:28
information
12:29
here that you can interact with
12:32
and um i think you know for me
12:35
audio i'm i like listening to audible i
12:38
like this you know
12:39
i've struggled to read books these days
12:41
i listen to podcasts and audible
12:43
um i love audio um who knows
12:47
maybe there's a way to bring some audio
12:49
into structure flow
12:50
um that would be an interesting design
12:53
exercise if
12:54
you if you ever decide to take on that
12:57
enormous challenge
12:58
let me know because i i would be happy
13:00
to just do a whiteboard session
13:02
exactly yeah no i uh it's a good it's a
13:05
good question
13:06
um so so one of the things that we you
13:09
know
13:10
having a background in in transactional
13:12
uh in transactions
13:14
um one of the things that i've always
13:16
found really useful
13:17
are steps plans which you briefly
13:19
mentioned earlier
13:20
in our chat and i don't know if you have
13:24
this feature already in structure flow
13:26
but
13:27
as well as having the kind of relational
13:30
information on the page do you have a
13:33
timeline
13:34
information on the page yeah no it's
13:36
it's a it's a good question and
13:39
um uh you you can
13:43
show sequences of events
13:46
in structure flow so you can create
13:47
steps plans and structure effect
13:49
um in the same way that you can in
13:52
powerpoint
13:53
um we want to do more though
13:57
with what i would call time as a vector
14:00
so time is a you know as a thing you
14:03
know
14:04
not just forward-looking but
14:05
backward-looking as well
14:08
um there's a huge amount one can do not
14:11
just
14:11
with visuals but with data um
14:15
so um without sort of revealing too much
14:17
at this stage of course i can't
14:19
say i can say that this is something
14:21
that we're very very much looking at
14:24
that is interesting um i think the scope
14:27
for growth
14:27
is enormous because it is one of the
14:30
under-serviced functions that
14:31
that lawyers have never really had a
14:34
tool that allows them to go
14:38
how does this look right like like it's
14:40
it's a question that i remember being
14:42
asked by by a partner once upon him or
14:44
by several partners
14:45
where you would explain something and
14:47
then they go well how does it look
14:48
and then they'll point to the whiteboard
14:51
and it feels like
14:52
this is this is the future way of doing
14:55
this especially in the world where
14:58
remote working is probably here to stay
15:02
completely and you know there's some
15:03
other great tools out there that have
15:04
been helping
15:05
as well in this environment um we're
15:08
using one right now
15:09
we're using one right now exactly but
15:12
you know
15:12
um shout out to our other tour you know
15:15
miro
15:16
for example i mean we we have customers
15:18
that use mirror and structure flow
15:20
um because you know there is a
15:23
um obvious benefit with a kind of remote
15:26
whiteboarding
15:28
um capability you can't just walk into
15:31
the room next door and draw something
15:33
um so i think you're right i think it's
15:36
here to stay
15:37
um and you know even if you are in the
15:40
same room
15:41
i mean do you really want to be using a
15:44
whiteboard
15:45
all the time or is there a more
15:46
intelligent way to do things now
15:49
you know get structure flow up on both
15:51
laptops and stick it on a big screen
15:53
right
15:54
and work together that way for me
15:57
i think there's a layer of benefit
16:00
almost like this
16:01
nostalgia involved when you're using the
16:03
old whiteboard but
16:04
you're right it's not the most effective
16:06
way and and what happens afterwards when
16:08
people want to take a
16:09
record of it they have to snap a photo
16:12
um
16:13
so so it makes a lot of sense for people
16:16
to kind of move off
16:17
this old world apart from for nostalgia
16:20
reasons
16:21
yeah i mean i again without i'm sort of
16:24
being sort of playfully
16:26
binary there you know like yeah there is
16:29
a role for a white board and yeah there
16:31
is
16:31
there is a role for a piece of paper and
16:33
a pen you know it's a fantastic way to
16:36
express yourself um and and to craft
16:39
some thought
16:40
uh quickly but you know pros and cons
16:43
uh depends depends what you're using it
16:46
for
16:47
do you think that structural flow is
16:51
one of those tools and i think these are
16:52
very rare
16:54
one of those tools that can cross
16:57
language barriers
16:58
and cross language barriers with almost
17:02
zero friction no completely 100
17:06
and we've had this feedback from
17:07
customers as well
17:09
uh that they can see the potential for
17:11
that um
17:13
you know there is a kind of visual
17:14
language that's developed around kind of
17:16
legal structures and transactions
17:18
and diagramming of them and um
17:21
that is a language that can uh
17:24
that can cross borders um you know
17:27
broadly if you take a structured diagram
17:29
and show it to a japanese
17:31
you know a lawyer in tokyo speaking
17:34
japanese
17:35
and show it to a lawyer in new york
17:37
speaking english
17:38
you know they will they will look at it
17:40
and they will understand you know
17:41
broadly
17:42
the same thing from it that's
17:45
really interesting so so there's no kind
17:48
of cultural differences in the way that
17:50
these sort of diagrams are
17:52
represented or or are the differences so
17:54
small
17:55
that the visual language can transcend
17:58
these barriers
18:00
broads conformity across people
18:03
in different parts of the world yes
18:06
um you know it's you know it's just
18:09
stuff like a hierarchy you know like a
18:11
group structure chart hierarchy right
18:13
you know people on people people tend to
18:15
understand that you know you have parent
18:17
companies that sit above subsidiaries
18:18
etc
18:20
um you have slightly different context
18:23
though like
18:24
interestingly show you know talk to a
18:27
kyc
18:28
person and they tend to budge when
18:29
they're doing kyc they actually tend to
18:31
like start from the bottom and then go
18:33
upwards
18:34
and you you know sometimes not so much
18:36
language barriers but kind of mental
18:38
model
18:39
are that they they can be different and
18:42
i'm guessing structural flow is flexible
18:44
enough so that it can work
18:45
both top down and bottom up correct
18:48
amazing amazing final question for me
18:52
um future direction for structure flow
18:54
where do you see yourself going in the
18:56
next 12 months
18:59
and so we're going to be building out
19:00
the products significantly over the next
19:02
12 months
19:05
really enhancing the data
19:09
capability and also the collaboration
19:12
capability within the product
19:14
today you know we've got three areas
19:17
within the application
19:19
visualization data collaboration there's
19:21
been a heavy focus on visualization
19:24
we're going to be now moving more
19:26
towards data and collaboration
19:28
oh i have so many questions about that
19:30
but but i'm not going to ask them today
19:32
um and instead i'm going to patiently
19:35
wait for the release of your product to
19:36
learn more about data
19:38
and to learn more about collaboration um
19:41
so tim thank you very much for this chat
19:43
i have learned so much and
19:45
and i think it's fascinating um i wish
19:47
you every success
19:48
i've now i think i've met almost every
19:51
member of your team during the legal
19:52
heat conference
19:54
cool nice so
19:57
so i look forward to seeing you and
19:59
everyone else and your team
20:00
succeed and go on to do great things
20:03
thank you very much snow it's been a
20:04
pleasure to have a chat with you again
20:06
and
20:06
yeah we look forward to talking again
