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

You can hear Rob and Mia discussing:

Connect with Mia Ihamuotila here:

https://fi.linkedin.com/in/mia-ihamuotila

Transcript

What 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. Across 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.

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. Thank you, Rob. Happy to be here again. My name is Mia Ihamotil. 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 a an unusual outfit in this conference. And well, I convinced Bradley, the CEO, to let me open the 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 legal evolution through movement and dance performance. 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. a AI, of course.

But I’m approaching that from a different angle. Also in the in the choreography that I created and the story and the visuals and the music that we had created for that. The the key aspect in it is that we need the original, let’s say ancient knowledge. We need that essence together with the new wave of AI.

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’s getting exponentially bigger. It’s very much on the map now as the go to legal events. what brought you specifically to Legal Tech Talk twenty twenty six and what’s been your biggest highlight, I guess I can guess, given what you’ve done thus far, or biggest insight you’ve picked up along the way this year?

Yeah, well I I got to open the the conference so that was the highlight and 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 I believe in co creation. So the more we can do that in conferences and bring a sense of community, that’s something I appreciate a lot.

And you know we like to collaborate. I always say collaboration’s domination, we is greater than me, and you’re a great example of that and the community that you’re building around the 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 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. So we were prototyping AI agents that has system prompts about thinking and different thinking modes because lawyers are inclined to usually apply only certain thinking modes and 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 and now it’s 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

the crux of the matter. And you’re doing a a fantastic job of educating us with that as 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? Yeah. Ideally we get more space.

within our our our minds so that we can meet and re like connect meet on depth and also have deeper sense of thinking and navigate 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 is providing us space to

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. Yeah. That’s interesting.

very interesting and you know, 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 twenty thirty that many legal professionals are perhaps still ignoring? Well I hope that that AI is gonna be kind of our second brain. Okay. not in a way that would dump our thinking, but it’s an extension of our thinking and our brain capacity. and

And I hope that’s gonna be obvious. and 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.

Yeah, it’s taking us to a whole new level, right? And I I 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 ninety days to prepare for a better future? One action. Create legal sandboxes and experimentative spaces in the organizations, and in 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 of losing their identity in this age. So yeah.

There might be some challenges in kind of digesting this idea of of AI elevating us to a hu new level, ’cause it might trigger fear and 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 the possibilities.

Well I’m that can be triggering and I’m on to talk about possibilities if one is in a fear state. So it’s an interesting era right now ’cause 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’s skill, mindset or behaviour you believe will separate tomorrow’s leaders from everyone else?

process oriented and systematic thinking that you’re able to map out and zoom out on on bigger to to the bigger picture and 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 with this episode for you too. Yeah, you will find me in LinkedIn, Mia Ihamadila, and also from Instagram, Mia Mundi, where I do more creative stuff and posts things from my dancers’ career.

There we go. Well, it just needs me to say thank you so much once again for joining me live 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 hub, 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.