Design startup Pickle Inc wants to make dealing with lawyers more human

Design studio Pickle Inc, a startup launched by two brothers inspired by their own father’s challenges in dealing with the legal sector, has launched to help law firms become more accessible for everyone. 

Rich and Alex Brophy hail from Perth, although Rich is now based in Sydney. They collaborated from opposite sides of the continent to establish legal design studio with a mission to make law more human.

Pickle Inc. delivers strategic branding, communications, digital, service and product design for legal organisations, with the focus on the user experience from a client’s point of view. 

“We recognised the untapped potential of law – an industry fundamentally based on human needs, but sorely lacking in a human-centred approach,” Rich Brophy said

“We took our hard-won smarts from a breadth of industries and made legal design our exclusive focus. We believe that by overlaying smart legal operations with an objective customer lens, we can both make law accessible and build businesses that thrive.” 

Both brothers have worked with some of the world’s biggest brands to design strategy, communications, products and services. 

Rich previously led experience design and strategy for Tricky Jigsaw and creative for WiTH Collective in Sydney. Alex led production for Business Insider Studios in New York and was strategy director at Urban List. 

Their first client is former Slater & Gordon Hayden Stephens, who enlisted Pickle Inc to establish his new class actions firm, 23 

“Throughout my career I’ve worked with a lot of people that purport to do what these guys do. But relatively few actually do,” Stephens said.

“Having their customer-first lens ‘always on’ and a preparedness to challenge me on my own thinking, meant that I came to market in a more informed and targeted way.” 

Stephens has several major class actions underway, including representing junior doctors to improve conditions in our hospitals. 

The Brophy brothers are hoping their startup will to make a positive difference to how legal services are provided and thus help good firms stand out and succeed.

“The law is the rules that society operates by, so they should be accessible to everyone, and effective for everyone,” Alex said

“So the work that we’re doing to make legal services easier to understand, for everyone from an individual trying to navigate family law to a participant in a statewide group action, is purposeful.”