Bio
Helena is a contract strategist and a Proactive Law pioneer. She is Associate Professor of Business Law, University of Vaasa, Finland, and director of Lexpert Ltd. Her research and practice focus on enhancing the functionality, usability, and user experience of contracts.
As the co-leader of the Nordic School of Proactive Law and of the ProActive ThinkTank she works with colleagues and designers to transform contracts from legal instruments to valuable business tools. This includes rewriting and redesigning complex texts using simplification and visualization. She has designed and conducted training on Contract Design, Legal Design, Proactive Contracting, Contractual Risk Management, and related topics around the world. Her mission is to fundamentally change the way contracts and the law are designed, communicated, perceived, and taught. Helena is a Fellow and network leader of World Commerce & Contracting.
Contribution to Legal Tech
Helena has published extensively at the intersection of law, design, and technology. Her research strives to merge human-centered design, proactive law, and legal technology to create contracts that are both human and machine-readable. She is one of the co-authors of the Legal Design Manifesto and one of the co-founders of the Legal Design Alliance. She is the co-creator (with Stefania Passera) of the World Commerce & Contracting’s ‘Contract Design Pattern Library’, an ever-growing collection of contract design patterns – effective, repeatable solutions to commonly occurring usability and understandability problems in contracts.
