Attorneys' / lawyers' uses of mind maps

Planning the establishment of a law firm

As with the planning of any business, mind maps can help lay out issues, think through possible problems and solutions and suggest connections that might not come to mind if the planning document were a simple list or outline.

This mind map shows how one practitioner thought through a new law firm’s needs. It is found in the original article at Carolyn Elefant’s Blog, “My Shingle”.

Assembling materials for a legal case

Mind mapping lends software itself well managing the complexity of case documents, and in particular their interconnectedness. Some – indeed most – desktop mind mapping applications support the attachment of files to nodes in the mind map.

Case management

A mind map, or sometimes a set of mind maps, provides a framework in which you can

• organize the outline of a case,
• show in a visual presentation where research is needed,
• place links to reference material where it belongs in relation to the actions to be taken,
• maintain the mind map to reflect findings and actions,
• track progress and ourstanding items with a ‘dashboard’ front end.

Managing a case may be compared with managing other projects of equivalent size, and the rigor with which legal cases must be analyzed means that mind maps are particularly suited to this as described here.

Mediation

Organizing and communicating complex and critical information can be facilitated with the flow and connectedness that mind maps provide, as this article decribes: Get it across with a mediation mind map. The author explains that it can be crucial in mediation to ensure that needed information is immediately to hand, arguments can be outlined visually, and key documents and testimony can be called on. If mind mapping software is used, this can all be done straight from the mind map.

(Note that most, but not all, mind mapping software applications have the capability to link to computer files – check before making a decision. Some computer software is designed specifically to support such a task.)

Suitable styles of information map

The style of map used in law firms will generally be common mind maps or spidergrams. However, for rigorous analysis, there may be occasions when concept maps or argument maps will be found valuable.