David Johnson is a lawyer, teacher, and writer. His fascinating career path has taken him from Miami courtrooms in the '80s to general counsel roles for Silicon Valley tech startups in the '90s, and now teaching and research posts at Stanford Law School and the Stanford Institute of Design—known as the “d.school.” His work in design began as GC and COO for a consultancy that was applying design thinking for business advice. This eventually led to his d.school class, Negotiation by Design. Today, he is applying design thinking learnings, not just to the wicked problems facing legal, but to the even bigger problems facing climate change in his new book, Climate Activism by Design, which brings design thinking to citizen activists responding to the climate change crisis. His most recent article, “Design for Legal Systems,” was published by the Singapore Academy of Law.

Listen in to today’s conversation to learn more about how design thinking can help with the development and improvement of human systems, how it can help lawyers think more collaboratively, and how it can move us from the feeling of individual powerlessness to collaborative power to solve massive problems such as climate change.