Adversary proceedings
Provided attorneys with a student loan case management workflow that led to a 9% increase in user accounts from existing firms and earned an 84% satisfaction rating.
Overview
Stretto is a SaaS company that provides case management and filing solutions for bankruptcy attorneys through their software called Best Case cloud. Within a bankruptcy case, there are mini lawsuits called adversary proceedings that attorneys will directly handle for their clients or outsource to another firm.
Roles
UX Designer, UX Researcher
Timeline
April 2023 - May 2023
Deliverables
Process Flows, Site Map, Mockups
User needs
Due to recent policy changes to student loan adversary proceedings and feedback from our client advisory board, we knew there was an opportunity to support the managing and filing of adversary proceedings within Best Case cloud.
Business goals
Since Best Case cloud did not support adversary proceedings, Stretto saw this as an opportunity to increase user accounts by supporting this workflow.
Discovery
SME collaboration
I facilitated a session with our attorney subject matter experts to better understand adversary proceedings and what attorneys might need to prepare and file cases within Best Case cloud.
Research
Client advisory board feedback
Based on feedback from our client advisory board, the product manager and I determined that the attorney’s current method of managing and filing adversary proceedings was tedious and disorganized. We were able to develop initial MVP features.
“I filed 120 cases in the last week and I didn’t use Best Case for anything. There is no way to prepare an adversary proceeding in Best Case, I have to do everything in Word. ”
MVP features
Allow users to create an adversary proceeding case.
Update case overview, client search, and client page.
Track court notices and important dates.
Concept development
User flows
Process flows + feature map
Next, it was vital to understand how an adversary proceeding case would align with the existing case creation and management processes that currently exist for the bankruptcy case. I took the initiative and created process flows and a feature map.
Process flow to show how users can add a new adversary proceeding case.
Updated information architecture for the Case Overview page for adversary proceedings. The boxes in yellow are are elements that will be visible, while the outlined boxes will be disabled for this case type.
Wireframes
After fleshing out the process flows with the product manager, I started to wireframe a few variations of the design.
Concept validation
User testing
With a few edits from the product and the design team, I was able to turn the design into high-fidelity mockups for testing. I created a user interview guide to gather feedback on the prototype from 5 attorneys.
“I’ve complained about it [not being able to file adversary proceedings] for years. So this is a yes, this is a step in the right direction. I’ve been complaining for several years.”
Updates
Navigation between cases
Attorneys expect to navigate between the bankruptcy and adversary proceeding cases easily.
Deadline flexibility
Attorneys needed more freedom when tracking Important dates and deadlines.
Additional features
Attorneys expected to see electronic filing, multi-tab editing, and form templates in future releases.
Final design
Attorneys can add adversary proceedings as an additional case type for their clients by linking the lawsuit to the bankruptcy case.
A major pain point was managing deadlines. Attorneys can now track all deadlines in one place with greater flexibility.
Attorneys can also track court notices and store case & client documents.
Next steps
After the positive feedback from user testing and appropriate iterations, I communicated my designs to the engineering team in their agile grooming and planning sessions to enable them to build and ship the feature.
We saw a 9% increase in user accounts from existing firms and earned an 84% satisfaction rating.
Following the successful launch, the additional requested features (electronic filing, multi-tab editing, etc.) will need to be researched, designed, and implemented.