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.

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